The Lady , or the Tiger T
by Romantic Nerd
Summary: Murders, robberies, hounding press and pressures from all around, William and Julia must find their way through adoption setbacks, the ups and downs of romance, encounters with wild animals, and more, in this romantic adventure. Both T and M Versions available.
1. Chapter 1

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 1: Preface

Once upon a time, in the Autumn of 1906, the Murdoch's encountered an entangled mystery. It danced and dodged, its challenges revealing hidden truths about human nature uncloaked by weighty choices and their subsequent consequences, reminding of the fable of "The Lady, or the Tiger?"

 _In a more barbarous time, a brutal king devised a dastardly means of trial by ordeal, through which one's guilt or innocence was to be decided by chance. The accused is delivered into a public arena and is confronted with a choice between opening one of two indistinguishable doors. Hidden behind one door, the king has chosen the perfect lover for the accused, marital bliss its prize, while sequestered behind the other door is a man-eating tiger, offering a certain and torturous death. But in this fable, it is not the choice that the_ **accused** _makes which is significant. No, it is the choice made by the accused's lover, whom he knows has come to learn what lies behind each door. It is_ **this** _choice around which this story dwells, for the accused looks to his trusted lover to aid in his decision, and thus it is_ **she** _who has the power to give her most cherished lover either to the love of another, or to throw him to an agonous mauling and terrifying death._

 _In this Murdochian tale, many characters, both old and new, tackle such impossible dilemmas… But I begin by leaving you with the same frustration as did Frank Stockton in 1882, for in Stockton's telling of the story, the outcome of this monumental choice is never revealed._


	2. 2: Primal Urges & Wolves at the DoorT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 2: Primal Urges & Wolves at the Door

A thunderstorm had rumbled through in the deepest part of the night, waking them, stirring them into making wild, passionate love – rough and hungry and zealous. Finished, and utterly exhausted from the arduous expenditure of every ounce of his energy, William now remained atop of his wife, sweaty, heavy, his entire body ladened and weak, whispering his love into her neck, his voice dry and winded and hot.

"Shh," she coaxed him, "Just listen to the teeming rain outside the window… and the gushing and rustling of the leaves in the trees, William," each of them relished in the gentle feel of her lips' glances across the skin of his ear as she spoke. Julia practically needed to pry her fingers out of his back… " _It had been intense,_ " she nearly giggled, and she tenderly trickled her fingernails up into his damp hair, cherishing his scalp, reveling in the humid sweetness of her husband, loving him with all of her heart for he had truly given her _everything_ he had.

In the sounds and smells of the lush lingering storm, they recovered. They recovered their regular heartbeats, they recovered their slower breathing rates, they recovered their grounded separateness, and William rolled off of her, bringing her along, perfectly resting her head on his chest. Blissful contentment soaked and bathed into each cell, it slowly dissipated, mingling with the strains and imperfections of one's living a full life in a challenging world. Thoughts came, of work tomorrow, of receiving another rejection letter from an orphanage, of their beautiful son sleeping in his room down the hall…

"I'll adjust the alarm," William broke the silence, leaning and stretching towards his night table. He would change the time of their forced waking, give them a few more precious moments.

Julia glanced up to see the time… " _Two_ ," she thought, seeing the tiny hands in the last dwindling flashes of lightning, " _Yum, hours still to sleep_."

(

Her morning routines finished in the bathroom, Julia tiptoed across the bedroom floor to the window. The cool, crisp breeze of an autumn dawn meandered in, slipping through the cracks in her robe to tingle her bare skin underneath, and she remembered the storm, and their steamy lovemaking, with its thrilling touch. Her deep sigh, one of contentment, she considered whether to begin to dress for the day or wake William. Wondering about the time, she decided to walk over to his side of the bed.

Her eyes traveled to his face. In the rosy golden light, she could see the rugged shadow on his jawline, his long, dark lashes softly closed. " _Mmm_ ," she breathed out her body's, her soul's, reaction to this man – William Murdoch was very attractive, indeed. Gathering up her hair and twisting it back out of her face, she glanced at the time. " _Ten minutes. Not much. Not enough,"_ she thought to herself with disappointment, telling herself to quiet the warm ache she felt churning for him in her womb.

Gazing back at him, those chocolaty brown eyes of his, breathtaking, in this warm luminescence, she felt caught. His look so focused, so luring… He lowered his covers, never releasing his hold on her eyes, and watched as she yielded, surged as she looked him over. His chest, his shoulders, his arms, down his stomach, then stuck, deliciously stuck, her eyes widened, her knees weakened, cloaked, but most assuredly present, the bulge in his pajama bottoms catching her attention.

"Come here," so lusty he said it, the look in his eyes, the tented rise in the fabric above his groin, tugging her so that she felt the enormity of his need in every cell. He took her hand. " _He had just woken up!"_ some semblance of reasoning tried to sound in her head _, "Perhaps he had been having a sexy drea…"_

Flying, she was suddenly just flying, head over heels, defying gravity with the flip, finding herself flat out on the mattress. " _How did he do and that and not hurt me?_ The surprise showed in her eyes. Taking her hands above her head, pinning her wrists down to the soft bed… He was…

" _Who is this man? William's going to have his way with me! My sash… undoing my sash._ Suddenly her skin was engulfed by a cold rush of the fall-morning air, and subconsciously her womb quaked and her back arched up to him. "Who are you?" she asked, grasping at her self-control. Narrowing her eyes at him, feigning a warning, "What have you done with my husband?" she joked.

Lusciously out of breath, charged, exhilarating, he replied, "It's just, sometimes I find you so irresistibly sexy."

The look on his face pulled at her, and invaded her, simultaneously. Hands still pinned above her head, he took liberties, rendering her helpless to him, his hand explored, forceful and ravenous on her naked body, robustly his thumb roamed over her hip bone, riding her, riding in along the scrumptious curve of her, grabbing, holding, taking her waist. So humungous, tremendous, the wrenching of her womb for him, the tilt so dizzying, the foggy threat hanging there, of swirling blackness in the stratosphere. _She would answer, continue their play, tease him for telling her that sometimes he could not resist. Use the same words she had used to respond that first time, to his "picnic" request and their drinking of absinthe…_ Pushing the words out breathlessly, "And this is one of those ti..."

His mouth on hers, stifling, muffling, stealing the word, impossible to catch its sound, its meaning as it spun and dropped away from her. Demanding, deep kisses, ravaging her. The barreling, rampaging flip of her insides as his mouth seized her tender neck. His hand pushed at her thigh. Still flying, out of control, out of control, she resisted his push. Urgently he forced his hand harder against her, her defenselessness swelling his primal urges, and she succumbed. _Wham_ her brain, her insides, twisted and squeezed and flooded and flung as he moved… her breath flying out of her nostrils, the sound of it urging him on… Between her legs… Reaching for his pajama bottoms.

 _Too fast. Too fast,_ Julia's world was spinning out of control.

" _Mm_ ," her desperate moan in the air, defying her panic, finding him so delicious, him to her, the touch. _Wanting him_ , astoundingly, astoundingly eager and ready and lusty, and _oh my God_ the feel of him sliding, pushing, taking…

 _He would be too fast_! His powerful lovemaking began, thundering…

"William," it was her voice out there, she heard it begging.

Pounding and pumping, he felt the lift, the humungous, treacherous rise… "Julia," he called her, pulled her, urged her closer, urged her to hurry.

 _Oh my God, it was going to be big_ , she felt the tidal-wave's promise. Breathy and humid, her words, "Yes William. Yes. It's coming," she answered him as she felt the rumbling, the roaring, just before the enormous crash, and William only drove harder, so much harder, soaring them both, inertia tumbling them, whirling, and flipping, and exploding them, so mountainous the fall, the sweet, sweet ripples of the fall flowing through every moleculous morsel, melding them together as one.

The succulent sounds of their harmonious moans of release, of their voracious pleasure, still hung in the air, sang in their ears. Dense and heavy, the warm liquid lead flooded his muscles, useless, spent. He felt her underneath him, breathing, heart beating – rapid and strong. The flood of conflicting emotions cascaded, still overpowered by the warm, wonderful soaking of lust and love, he felt the edges darken with guilt. _He'd been rough… too rough._ Yet, his words, spoken, told only of the sweetness still floating within him, hot in her ear, "That was…"

"I see you quite liked it," she beamed, gentle and warm, her kiss to his cheek, her breath showering over his face, then a tender rubbing of her petal-soft lips and chin along his stubble. The reassurance of it sent the dark shadows fleeing, leaving him solely drowned with the warm, golden magic of their love.

The alarm sounded.

With her hold on him, still around him, he rolled them, rotated them, sitting them up on the edge of the bed, his feet to the floor, his wife straddling him, in his arms, her knees bent at his sides, his pajama bottoms draped around his ankles, he turned off the alarm.

Her voice in his ear, "My, you really _swept_ me off my feet, detective."

"Mm-hmm," he chuckled, kicking free of his pajama shackles.

"I love you, William Murdoch. I count my lucky stars that I married you, every day, every day," she vowed.

"I'll remember that the next time you are banishing me to the couch," he grinned, so delightfully cocky.

"At your peril, mister," she warned mischievously, "That is, if you know what's good for you."

He stood, her clinging tight, riding him like a trusty steed. "I'm not letting you go yet. Not yet," she informed him, him feeling her grip around him tighten.

Playfully he tried to unseat her, jumping, and wriggling about.

Her clutching beautifully increasing…

"Now, Mr. Murdoch, you know you are not the only one here who can sit a buck," she challenged him, surging his efforts.

Delicious, her squeals.

 _Wham_ , he pressed her back into the wall. The thrill sparkling in his eyes, in her eyes. He kissed her, she melted. "You win," she whispered, lowering her legs to the floor, letting him go.

)

William just finishing brushing his teeth, Julia re-robed and laying out her clothes, the tiny knocking rapped at their bedroom door. Their son, now almost two years-old, on the other side, the parents shared a look… _Fun_ , agreed. Hurrying to the bed, Julia tossed William a pillow, then grabbed one for herself.

"Just a minute," Julia called out as they both snuck forward to the door. One glance, and William reached over and turned the knob.

Glee and surprise on the little child's face at the sight of his mother directly in front of him, the promise of roughhousing held in the pillow in her hands…

"Good morning, little one. Now I'm gonna get you," her teasing tone promised the horse-playing shenanigans he so craved.

So overwhelmingly enamored by the game, instead of running away, her tiny son plowed directly into her pillow, screaming and shrieking with delight, to be scooped up into the air and to have his giggles muffled by the wonderful fluffiness.

Suddenly, his Daddy joined the game, with a wild growl, intensifying his joyous squeals. Quickly sandwiched between two pillows, the father exclaimed, "A toddler sandwich and we're gonna eat you up." Gravity-defying spins and tosses, and parental squeezes, and even being thrown on the bed, and then tickled, and being encouraged to return the pillow-fire, all resulted in parental exhaustion.

Lying flat out on the bed, being repeatedly battered with pillows by both his lovely wife and his adorable little son, William called out uncle, and grabbed his boy and hugged him close, letting the child ride the breaths of his chest. "Whew," he blew out some of his exhaustion, then secretly whispered, "You never kissed your mother good morning," prompting the little boy to dart to his mother and jump into her opening arms and be showered with kisses.

"Good morning, Mommy," he declared.

"And your Daddy," she returned the favor, sending the child running across the space between them once more. Bounding into his father's lap, he gave him a kiss, "Morning Daddy," he said.

Julia walked over to them where they sat on the bed and extended a hand, inviting their son to go with her. "Let's get you started, little one. Daddy has to shave," she said.

"I wanna see," William Jr. began his pleas.

"Then you'd best hurry with brushing your teeth then," his mother bargained.

Like a rocket, he burst away from her, his little feet pattering down the hall to the bathroom in a rush.

She looked back to her husband, "Shouldn't take long, with his few little teeth," she added, laughing at her own joke… _in his opinion, endearingly_.

Intending to share his morning shave with his son, William set out his clothes and waited for the two of them to return. He had pulled Julia's vanity chair up to the bathroom countertop so William Jr. could stand on it and see into the mirror. The boy watched with amazement as his Daddy put the shaving cream on his face with the little brush. Then his Daddy made his world shine, wholeheartedly sharing the experience with the boy, he spread some of the foam on the little boy's face with the soft, soft brush. And then, with a quick glance in the mirror to his wife, he handed his son her nail-file to be his 'razor,' and he proceeded to teach the boy how to 'shave' off the cream right alongside his Daddy.

His Mommy's smile in the mirror, telling it was part of the play, she scolded her husband mercilessly.

Not long after, the doorbell rang. It was Uncle George, with the Constabulary carriage. They were needed – there was a body in the park.

) (

Noticing that the morgue carriage had already arrived in the park, Julia took William's hand and stepped out of the police carriage. She went directly to the body lying on the road. William stayed back, getting updated and then giving instructions to the constables at the scene. When he joined her, squatting down next to her at the body's side, he found that his mind was flashing images… sexy, inappropriate, luscious images…

"Doctor," he said, tilting his hat, catching her eye.

"Detective," came her reply, sultry… her beautiful blue eyes lingering a little too long.

Stuck. They were seductively stuck together, mingling in the persistent, tempting, euphoric remnants of the afterglow.

William's mind, in multiple directions all at once the circuits were firing, dwelled on the rosy color of her cheeks, and the tempting of a dangling curl at her edge. Close enough to touch, he broke their decorum while working, and reached across the distance between them to take the curl in his fingers.

The uncharacteristic and alluring action drew a yearnful breath from her, for her mind had managed to hold tighter to the roles they each played _in public,_ at least at this moment, more so than did his, it appeared, and she regretted it deeply.

"Detective," she called, sensing his eyes better focus. _Slowly it would hit him, what he was doing wrong, where they were._ With such a powerful hope and anticipation, she waited for the beautiful flooding of blushing to cover his face, preparing desperately to fight her smile as it did.

The blush did not come, and instead, his holding to her eyes tugged at her. She fought the whirlwind, leaned into the force of it defiantly, needing to break the spell.

"The body, detective," she said, her tone too longing, too monotone, but at least the words had made it out into the vortex for him to hear. _He would fall back into the reality around them, help to pull her there, too, as he fell back down to the ground._

 _Oh, but his eyes betrayed the misunderstanding… "_ _ **the body**_ _, detective," she had said…_

His mind flared the memory, hot and strong, of _his firm, demanding hold on her flesh, her curvy, naked body flashing in the flickering lightning bolts. He saw it, smelled the ozone of it, heard her gasp, as he glided and lifted his needy fingers over her ribcage, seizing her bosom as she straddled above him, so creamy and delicious, upwards, and downwards, and inwards, rippling and yielding to him, creating deep, deep cleavage, the bulbous orbs jiggling with the waves of his motions. He rose up to her, tucked into her, smothering his face in her, right before the soft surrounding of her flesh muffled the boom of the crack of thunder, roaring through the world._ His groin bolted, as his eyes traveled down over her body and his breath both surged and caught…

"The _victim's_ body, detective," her voice stronger now, threatening to tease.

The bump of her tone providing the shove he needed… and the smells of the park, the sounds of the birds, flowed in, and he was… back.

And then the beautiful blush came, with the wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. He needed to clear his throat before speaking, and still his voice scratched, "I'm having trouble forgetting…" he cleared his throat again, he let go of her curl. He was going to say this " _this morning_ …"

But she spoke first. "It was lovely – memorable," she agreed. She sounded so grounded now.

"George," he called out, perhaps a little too loudly, in an effort to force himself back to the scene.

The constable joined them, squatting down on the other side of the body.

"It's downhill on your side, George. Is it wet under him?" William asked.

"Yes, some, but it seems to be dry further under…"

"The body was placed here well before sunrise?" Julia asked, looking to the detective at the scene.

George's face showed his amazement.

William nodded, turning to George to explain. "There was a thunderstorm, um…" he reached up to rub his brow, causing Julia to shift her position nervously in his periphery. _He was certain she was stifling the urge to giggle._ "Around two this morning…" he paused, to push hard against the explicit details of the memory that threatened to reappear in his mind, "It woke us up."

"I see," the constable replied. And truth be told, he did, his own memories playing in his head of hearing the hearty cries of the old neighbor woman's parrot, back at the Windsor House Hotel, imitating Dr. Ogden's sensual and rowdy exclamations during what was obviously this couple's passionate lovemaking. He betrayed himself, a _Mona-Lisa_ smile curling on his face, and all three of them jolted their attention back down on the body.

It appeared that this particular murder was not going to be all that difficult to solve. The victim had identification on him, and a knife, the likely murder weapon, still wedged in his chest. The blood at the scene suggested the murder had taken place here. There was a bloody footprint. Time of death, based on temperature and lividity, matched with the conclusions drawn from the observation of the presence of a dry spot underneath him, was determined to be between midnight and two a.m. and that he had been stabbed right here where he laid.

After examining the body at the scene, and after asking if she could take the body back to the morgue, Julia and William stood together, off slightly to the side, the body still on the ground behind them in the distance, knife poking up into the air, and they broke protocol, talking more intimately than they normally might, while, unbeknownst to them, they were being photographed. She asked if he would accept having Miss James perform the autopsy. "It looks fairly straight forward, William," Julia argued, "And I have my class today. Remember…" she nudged, leaning closer to him.

He nodded, prompting her to smile, which then brought a smile to his face as well.

She reminded, "I'm bringing them up to our property – the body farm…"

"Yes," he interrupted, wanting to show her how attentive to her plans he was, "It's a brilliant idea, a study on the effects of season on buried bodies." Her class would be analyzing bodies buried on both of the equinoxes – one was today, and both of the solstices.

Thinking of her and her class up at the body farm, he felt a gurgle of dread in his gut. He had to remind himself that they had solved all the tumultuous cases of the _extra_ bodies that had been found up there. Still, the press had been aggressively critical of the whole idea of such a thing as a body farm, calling it morbid and spooky, and he still had a bad taste in his mouth from all their negative stories. "Be on the lookout, Julia, for any loitering reporters on the hunt for their latest take-down story," he warned, with a raised eyebrow.

Her giggle suggested she took his warning as a joke, yet, she told herself, he was probably right.

Uncommonly, they kissed, probably due to a lingering of their intimacy from their morning not yet fully letting go. She would be home late. He would miss her.

) (

Back at the stationhouse, things with the case of this morning's Atkins murder progressed rapidly. The victim's wife had an alibi – she and their two children had been being visited by her sister and her child who had spent the night with them. Her husband, the victim, was to have returned from a business trip late last night and had planned to sleep in his office. The wife suspected her husband's business partner of the murder. The partner, Mr. Tarson, had a temper, and he had been trying to get her husband to sell him his half of the business for weeks. The fingermarks on the knife matched those of the business partner, at least based on the fingermarks that they had dusted for in both the victim's and Mr. Tarson's offices, and compared to those of the victim. And they had discovered matching footprints going into the victim's office, figuring the partner had returned there after committing the murder. The only hitch was that they were having trouble locating the suspect. The constables were out looking for him.

Finally having time, William sat down at his desk and took a deep breath. " _Ah_ ," he thought, " _the paper_." He had barely made it through the headlines of the first page when the phone rang through from the front desk. "Detective?" the front desk constable's voice checked.

"Yes Jenkins?" William said.

"There's a man from an orphanage on the line for you, sir," the constable said.

A zing of worry overcame William. _Surely, now, the gossip would spread through the whole stationhouse like a wildfire._

"Thank you, constable," he replied as calmly as he could. Before he had had a chance to recover from that first worry, another bigger one surged up from his innards – _"What if they reject us too?!"_

"Detective Murdoch, Mr. Harlen here. I'll be to the point, I know you're a busy man," the caller said.

"Thank you, sir. It's appreciated," William answered.

"It seems the board just simply could not be convinced, I'm sorry to say. It seems… well to be frank, detective… It seems that your wife's history was too… vexing for them."

"Vexing?" William heard himself sounding defensive, advised himself to back-off.

"Well, perhaps it would be helpful for you to better know what you're up against…" the man seemed to be wavering.

William decided in that instant that he wanted to know _exactly_ why Julia – and it did sound like it was Julia, was being rejected as someone's mother.

"Better than what?" William asked.

"Um… Well, the letter we've sent you… It won't be very specific, you see," the man hinted.

"Well, I'd like you to be specific, please, Mr. Harlen," William stated plainly.

"Very well," Mr. Harlen gave. He took a deep breath and explained, "The board mentioned many… problems with your wife…"

William remained silent, his jaw tightening, unconsciously, his fist curling.

"I mean, she wouldn't even take your name when you married. And she had filed for a divorce… And, well, you have to admit detective, the fact that the two of you blatantly had an affair while she was married to Dr. Garland – at the Queen's Hotel together – it's on public record. Now, there is no argument, that's outright scandalous behavior…"

William's anger was letting go, he sunk deeper into his chair, his back rounding under the astoundingly crushing pressure of it all.

The man went on, "She works. She has been arrested… more than once. On trial for murder – and even convicted…"

William leaned into the phone, unwilling to let this go on. "But she was…"

"Yes," Mr. Harlen interrupted, "Yes, you proved she was innocent. But then she was also arrested for teaching women about methods of contraception."

The detective's sigh into the receiver announced that he had conceded. He was only grateful that they didn't know the whole of it in that regard, absolutely terrified of the consequences of knowledge ever getting out of Julia's abortion. For that, it would not only be rejection from orphanages, it would be jail, possibly even hanging.

Mr. Harlen returned a sigh. "I am sorry detective, but it seems unlikely any adoption board will agree to giving a child up to a household so lacking in…" here the man's hesitation sent a panic through William, the judgement so potentially harsh. He held his breath, bracing…

Harlen chickened-out, did not pass on the condemning moral judgement. "I'm sorry, you will have to look elsewhere, detective, I'm afraid," he concluded, "The letter is in the mail."

With a huff, William answered as politely and confidently as he could, "Thank you for your time Mr. Harlen. We will."

"Good day," the man said before he hung up the phone, as if that would be possible now.

His face mixed between a frown and a scowl, William reached up and rubbed his brow. _Every fiber of his being yelled for him NOT to tell this to Julia,_ for there was no doubt, it would be devastating for her. _But how could he not?_ She was his partner, his soulmate through this life. He would have to tell her. Deciding to let the problem stew on the back burner, he returned to the paper, quickly regretting it.

A headline inside enticed readers to the latest gossip about the Murdoch's. The article stole any choice he had had in the matter – _he definitely would need to discuss it with Julia now_.

"Modern Ogden Unfit for Mothering, Orphanage Rules," read the headline.

 _Yes, the whole stationhouse would know they were trying to adopt, the whole world it seemed. And much, much worse, the whole world would hear about his lovely Julia from the dismal perspective of the wolves huffing at their door_. William sat, chin in fist, staring down at the dreadful paper.

He felt a surprising relief with the knock at his office door. "Sir, we found Mr. Tarson. He was trying to board a train," Crabtree said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Should we put him in the Interview Room?" he asked.

"Yes George. That's very good, very good," he nodded and jumped up.

"Actually sir. He's already confessed," George told.

William stalled, took a breath to think. "Good. Good," he nodded again. "We'll make it official," he concluded. He retrieved the file from his desk and headed in to take the confession.

) (

A few hours later, William sat at his desk, flowers for his wife laid off to the side, finishing up the file on this morning's case. He wasn't surprised when a call came through from Julia, but he fought to sound unbothered, hoping she had not yet seen the paper, and figuring it best to breach the subject when they were at home.

"Julia," his voice smiled for her, "Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Well detective," he so loved the playful teasing he so often heard in her voice, "Now that you ask…"

"What is it?" his curiosity and worry rose.

"It seems that here at the infamous Murdoch Body Farm, there is, once again, a body that we did not bury here," she told. "And, to make matters worse…"

 _Now, with this his whole stomach flipped upwards while his heart sunk…_

"It appears that a few reporters got word we would be here today, somehow. Circling like wolves, actually," she giggled, betraying her own discomfort, "Unfortunately, they smelled blood, and a few of my students verified their assertions… and well, they know, um, details now. And they're asking for more. And William, it's… I think you should come," she said.

She heard his pressured exhale through the phone line. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he promised her. "Uh, Julia…"

"Yes?" so sweet her voice…

"It'll be alright," he said.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure it will, William. But it will be better when you're here, hmm?' she asked him, told him.

"I'm already out the door," he said, standing, stretching to reach for his homburg. He hung up the phone.

"George," he called, "I could use your help."

) (


	3. 3 Being Badgered: Press On

The Lady, or the Tiger

Chapter 3: Being Badgered: Press On

The ride to the Murdoch's property, out on the bank of the Don River, was long from the Medical College – almost an hour, and Dr. Ogden's Forensics Medicine class was large enough that the trip required two carriages. In both, talk centered around recent events. In one carriage, the one that included Dr. Ogden, the topic that was being enthusiastically debated was that of the news of the upcoming and controversial planned execution of Dr. Restell, charged and found guilty of murder for performing multiple abortions. _Needless to say, the topic was uncomfortable for Julia, with her history_. Thus, her contribution to the lively discussion harbored around the legal considerations. "The law allows for life imprisonment. It is quite a stretch to extend it to hanging," their professor added.

Her comment was quickly picked up, Madeline insisting, "Restell is being used to set an example… to intimidate any other doctors who…"

Interrupting, Gladys tried to hammer her point, "As he should be. You know, it was argued that one of those babies was born alive!"

"I greatly doubt it," Ethel jumped in, "You would know such a thing would be impossible if you understood the procedure."

Dr. Ogden decided to stop the debate, which was coming dangerously close to an outright fight, right there, holding up her hand and wearing a stern expression she said, "Enough! Enough. This is a very charged issue, and we will have to accept that the various views on it are held strongly, and with conviction. As doctors, we will need to know the law, respect the law. As women, as modern women, if we don't agree with those laws, we will have to work to change them. Are we agreed?"

She received sheepish nods all around.

In the other carriage, the discussion of the latest newspaper stories about the upcoming hanging of Dr. Restell had stopped rather abruptly, the moment one of the students brought up the _other_ story in this morning's paper, the one about the Murdoch's being rejected in their efforts to adopt a baby. Not a one among these young women thought badly of Dr. Ogden. Quite the opposite was true, she was an admired role model, mentor, for some she was outright idolized. They were all in agreement that the story was unfair, and hurtful. Still, it was human nature to want to know about the private lives of one's heroes, and so their natural curiosity lingered and solidified. All agreed, Detective Murdoch was extremely handsome, and he was most likely a wonderful husband. And the couple had had a child, so the suspicions that they used contraception seemed unfounded, certainly unsupported by the facts. But, it did seem that, assuming their sex-life was normal, and they all agreed, with embarrassed giggles, that they all imagined that the lovemaking between Dr. Ogden and Detective Murdoch was likely much, much _better_ than normal, thus it seemed likely that Dr. Ogden should have become pregnant sooner than she did after the couple had first married. And, _Oh, how their eyes widened_ with the guilty pleasure of the topic of the doctor's murder trial, and the reported events from during that trial of both, the detective and Dr. Ogden, telling all the world that they loved each other – even though Dr. Ogden had been married to another man at the time… _**And the Queen's Hotel!**_ They squealed with the gossipy, dirty, delight of it…

A reporter was already waiting at the front gate of the Murdoch Body Farm when the two carriages with Dr. Ogden and her students pulled up. Their sentiment behind their professor's frown was clear as she mumbled, "He must've somehow heard our class was meeting here today." She looked around at her students' faces. They read her intention. She saw it on their faces. She huffed, _telling herself that that was sufficient scolding._

Teddy Nelson of the Toronto Gazette, little notepad and pencil in hand, barked his first question as the doctor disembarked. "Dr. Ogden, is it true that you and your husband use contraception?" his rude and shocking words scalding her through and through, and alighting a panic deep inside of her. She held back any visible reaction, sensing the steam of the effort rising in her gut, spreading to her jaw.

Dr. Ogden took a deep breath. Ignoring the man, she discovered as she did it, was to be her obvious tactic. She turned to the other man waiting at the front gate of the Murdoch Body Farm. "Jake," she called to him, offering the big, burly, handyman her hand in greeting, "It was so kind of you to meet us here today."

"Doctor," the reporter's persistent, tinny voice yelled over the din of the students peeking and peering out of every opening in the carriages, and the chirping of the country birds, "Did you want to spare your own body the difficulties of going through another pregnancy… Is it because you wanted to be able to keep working? Is that why you are trying to adopt a baby? Do you think that is favorable to getting pregnant and having your own flesh-and-blood child with your husband?"

Julia's voice betrayed her anger, startling, alarming everyone all around, "Mr. Nelson," her chin jutted out and her fists curled, "That is truly no business of yours. Now, I will ask you to stay off of our property," she said, finding her own self-control returning, she added after a breath, "please."

Jake made sure to lock the gate behind them after all of the proper carriages had crossed the threshold. The two carriage drivers hired for the day had agreed to wait to bring the ladies back to the Medical College when they had finished their… _lab_. They helped the Murdoch's hired man unload what they suspected was a body – the reputation of this place was wide-spread, and then they sat together shooting the breeze. It appeared they also took on the task of guarding the premises, for at one point they noticed that that nosey, pushy, reporter had climbed the fence. They hollered and took a threatening run in the little weasel's direction, scaring him back to where he belonged.

)

First, Dr. Ogden had had the students each make and record detailed observations, and measurements, as well as collecting various samples from the body. She explained it was important to do this to be able to account for any changes that will have occurred after being the body had been buried in a shallow grave in the Fall. This would further enable them to make comparisons between changes that occurred in corpses buried in similar conditions in all the seasons – the spring, the summer, now this one in the fall, and the one final body which they planned to bury here in the winter. Thus, it wasn't until early afternoon that the class had ventured out to the chosen part of the body farm to be used for the "Season Experiment," the whole class and the handyman bringing the body to the slight depression on the property near the road. Jake Castern happily allowed the students to dig the shallow grave, handed over his shovel and backed away. He glanced over at Dr. Ogden to make sure she did not think him shirking his responsibilities, and, gratefully, he received a friendly nod.

"Mr. Castern," the doctor called to Jake from over on the other side of the rapidly forming grave, "Could you find us a few sticks, to use at markers. We want this grave to be exactly the same size as the other ones." A part of her wasn't even surprised when she heard the man call out a minute later from behind the brush line. " _Of course_ ," her internal-self rolled her eyes, " _Of course we would find another blasted body!_ "

 _And that they had._

Quickly the whole class gathered around, parting as the doctor moved through them to the dead man's naked body, laid flat out, barely covered with a few flecks of dirt and some leaves, facedown on the ground. She squatted down near his head. "Bullet wound to the back of the head. Very close range," she stated, her routines taking over. She paused, for she could already tell, this was going to be a very messy one. _There would be a humungous exit wound through the man's face – at least what would be left of it._

Dr. Ogden told each of them to remain exactly where they were, remarking that there might be footprints, or other evidence left here by the killer, or whomever dumped the body here. They needed, most carefully, to work to preserve any evidence at the scene. After making sure the way the body had been found was photographed by the student who had been assigned the camera, she and Mr. Castern carefully brushed away the debris, collecting it in bags. " _Perhaps it would be best to warn them_ ," she thought, as she prepared to roll the man over.

"Miss Jenner, could you help me roll him," Julia requested. Jake Castern gladly stepped back. As the boldest student Julia had in the class stepped into position to help, the doctor said calmly, "We can see here the entrance wound. Exit wounds… Tell me Miss Weston, how does their size compare to that of entrance wounds?"

"Much bigger… The exit wound will be bigger," the student rushed to answer.

Dr. Ogden swallowed as she scanned their worried faces. They were bracing for the sight. That was good.

)

When Julia returned, with most of the class in tow, to the lab building that she and William had built on the property, she had already decided to call William. Before she got inside to where the phone was located, though, the carriage drivers informed her that quite a few other reporters had shown up and that they were getting braver about trespassing.

"There would be no good reason for more of them to come here," she reasoned it aloud. It sounded like a question, or perhaps a reprimand, at least to the driver who responded.

Looking sheepish, he blurted out, "Sorry mam! I'm… we're, uh sorry. We didn't think, er… We uh told the one guy bout the body. I know it was stupid. I sees that now… mam."

Unable to control it, her lips slimmed and planted firmly at the rim of her mouth, and her chin took its customary jut. _Blast_ , she blew out the tension, then braved a glance down the driveway to see that there were at least three other carriages planted in front of their gate now, and four or five men. They were clicking pictures with cameras. _Mr. Nelson, when he hovered as the only reporter on the scene, would have seen us bring the box back from the field anyway. He'd have probably been able to tell it was just as heavy as when we brought the donated body in_ ," her mind grasped for calm. She dug into herself for some kindness, and responded to the harried driver, "It's alright. They'd have figured it out once we brought the body out anyway." She looked into the man's uneasy blue eyes and smiled kindly at him with a small nod, "Don't worry about it."

)

The morgue carriage, instead of the police carriage, had been the Inspector's idea. _It was a good one_ , William thought now, as he and George grew nearer to their Don River property in the more cumbersome vehicle. This way, Julia had been able to let her students return to the college before their arrival, not needing their larger carriages to transport the body. Typical of George, he was talking, and talking. The last time William had been paying attention, George was on the topic of the numerous bodies that have been found dumped at their Body Farm over the short time they had owned it. William's mind wandered… _he was glad he had thought to bring along his roses for Julia. She sounded stressed on the phone_. Not aware of his own tell, he reached up and rubbed his forehead. George had the reins. He sighed, and his eyes shifted back to the orange-red bouquet next to him on the seat. _The color was so vibrant, he thought, admiring them. She would like them_.

"Do you remember, sir… when Jackson and his secret sweetheart…" George's voice excited, drew William out of his thoughts. The Constable's eyes held to his, dripping with anticipation.

 _Quickly William's mind chased down the needed trail through his memories, finding the precise moment. Oh yes, he remembered it – ironically, he had been considering doing that exact same thing with Julia inside the secluded tent. Constable Jackson's biggest problem however, causing the rampant spreading of the juicy rumor beyond just the two people who had really seen the scandal of what was happening, was his and his young lady's utter lack of clothing, for George had noticed that he and Julia had hurried out of the tent, giggling, intending to give the couple time to redress. Of course, then George had rushed in to see for himself…Higgins right on his heels. Now, if you want to spread a rumor, tell Higgins…_

"Yes, George. I remember," he replied. William reached up to rub his brow again. "The press had a heyday with all that back then, I mean with all those bodies… particularly the extra ones, the ones Julia didn't bury there," he said.

George felt the deflation, felt it being replaced with worry. "Do you think the press will make a big deal out of it… out of another body being found there?" he asked.

William clamped his lips together. He did. He released another sigh.

George's mind made its usual jumps, landing on another disturbing newspaper article he had read in today's paper. He had observed the detective had had the paper opened to the page with the story. He was sure the detective had read it too. "I'm sorry, sir. Um, sorry about the way the press is reporting about you and… and Dr. Ogden, er, trying to adopt a baby…"

The look was quick, William's eyes showing surprise first, then the pain, before he looked away.

The silence intolerable to him, George went on, "The paper today… that article was blistering… It just seemed downright cruel…"

William couldn't help but replay the sharp words he'd read, " _Modern Ogden Unfit for Mothering_ ," then hearing Mr. Hanlon's voice in his head, " _Your wife's history was too_ _ **vexing**_ …" He couldn't help but re-feel the fear those words had evoked in him. _They would wound Julia terribly_. They crumbled their chances of adopting the child they so wanted. He reminded himself how much he trusted George. _Why, this was the man who had dressed as a hobo right alongside him, the man who had had his back out there in the jungles of the meatpacking and hoboing world. Actually, he remembered he had disclosed much to George about his love for Julia, and some of their more personal history while they rode the trains together._

Another sigh, William had decided to be brave. "George," William's voice asked, not masking its vulnerability, "What do the others… What do all the other constables think about such matters?" _It felt so strange, sitting there next to the man waiting, listening for the answer – like he wanted to hear and he didn't want to hear at the same time._

Surprised by Detective Murdoch's question, it took George a moment to react. _He was distracted by the flooding of joy inside of him at the recognition of his being so trusted by this modest, private man whom he adored so. He felt it swell in his chest, his love for his mentor and his friend._ "Well, they think… or they used to think, at least, before Dr. Ogden got pregnant and you two had your son, um… that she was sterile, or frigid," hurrying to add, "But I told them otherwise," he blushed, "There's no way Dr. Ogden's frigid, sir… um, I saw her Christmas present to you… so scantily wrapped up like that, and of course… um, I heard the parrot imitating, um… at your Windsor House Hotel. But, they do wonder sir… I mean you are Catholic, and Catholics are known to be… rigid about, um, er… reproductive matters, and Catholics tend to have lots and lots of children as well, and well, you two…er, you two don't…" George paused and finally inhaled. He seemed to convince himself to continue. "So, they say, um, she… that you… well sir, they all know that Dr. Ogden has quite a bit of knowledge, about contraceptives, and if you, um, er… her, were using any of those… methods, well, that would explain…"

"Why so few children," William finished for him.

Relieved, George's head took to repetitive nodding, "Yes!" he almost yelled it, "Yes, exactly."

William wrinkled his face. He understood all the questions that must be in everyone's minds, his current expression admitting to his worrying about it. "Yes, they must be curious," he said.

George sat on pins and needles. Wo _uld Detective Murdoch actually tell him!? Tell_ _ **him**_ _about his sex-life with Dr. Ogden! Tell_ _ **him**_ _about whether or not it was true that they used contraception!?_

Such turmoil thundered inside of William's heart, drawn by the memory of sitting with George and Upton Sinclair, the now famous author, who at the time had also been disguised as a hobo on the train looking for work, and William telling them his "story" that explained why he had ended up there, miserable, wounded, grieving by gazing for hours on end at an old photograph he had kept of Julia. _My God, he remembered with such an ache,_ that she had been pregnant with William Jr. at the time, and he had left het to go undercover, and he had played out _their story_ – _the way it could have been_ , as part of their ruse, falsely telling of her becoming pregnant with _Darcy's child_ rather than his. With relief, he remembered that he had **not** told them there on that train, that he had **not** told George, what it was that had caused Julia's supposed sterility. _Thank the Lord he hadn't told them of her life-threatening abortion._ It would have been a disaster to tell George such a _lethal secret_. He considered now, however, telling him that Julia's 'condition' made her unable to birth a child, of telling him that that was the reason _they_ _ **had used prophylactics**_ _in the past_ , that _it was a matter of_ _ **her life**_ … although now it seemed that all the scar tissue added to her womb from the Cesarean section surgery precluded the need for using them any longer, for it was even more unlikely than before that Julia could get pregnant. _It would have lessened his burden to share it, it would have increased the risk of having someone else knowing…_

A huge sigh surged out of William with his decision. _Such tension_ , he couldn't help it, he had to rub his forehead… again. "I…" the detective paused, clamped his lips tight again, then he slowly began to shake his head, "I can't… I'm not going to tell you… anything, George. I'm sorry."

"No sir, please," George blustered out his effort to reassure his friend, "Don't worry, I understand, it's private… and well, at least you know what the other constables think… now."

"Yes. Yes. Thank you," the detective responded warmly, nodding, feeling the conversation was closed. They were getting very close now, to the turn to the front gate. "Slow down here, George," William said. He warned his companion – and himself – that Julia had told him that there were already reporters positioned at the gate.

)

Annoyed, Detective Murdoch dismounted from the morgue carriage demanding the reporters move all their carriages. "This is my property, and official Constabulary business. We need to be able to get through our gate," he demanded.

The swarm only thickened around them. There were so many questions being hollered at him, _well some seemed to be aimed at George too,_ that none of them could be made out. Yet, somehow, the mob of reporters had learned how to work together. A first question was hurled out of the clatter, making contact. William was highly conflicted, _half telling himself not to respond, the other half trying to figure out how answer to help to end this dreadful ordeal._

"Detective Murdoch, will you confirm that, once again, your property has become a convenient dumping ground for Toronto's heinous murderers?" a young, ambitious reporter from the Toronto Daily Star managed to win the first race.

 _The sound of the camera shutters clicking registered in William's brain. His picture would be in the paper. They would be reporting all of this_. He reminded himself that these were men, many of them good men. Yes, they wanted a story, and they'd be willing to hurt him and to hurt Julia to get it. But, they could see reason… A calming breath, the crowd was poised. "Look, you reporters harass us incessantly whenever we don't solve a crime as quickly as you think we should. We are creating multiple means of improving our abilities to solve these crimes. This Body Farm idea of Julia's, of our pathologist, Dr. Ogden, my wife, was a good one, and although you have given us nothing but criticisms about it, _**it will help**_ , not just us, but future forensic scientists as well, in better solving these, agreeably, heinous crimes."

William moved towards the gate he needed to open, the gaggle parted, made way for him, a second round of a jumbled mayhem of questions fluttering about in his wake. The gate swung wide and George clicked his tongue, starting the horses forward. The hum of the reporters now shifted sideways to allow the carriage to pass behind them, tightening up around the detective who was still down on the ground. George heard that, particularly pushy, Teddy Nelson get his question highest, loudest, perfectly timed so that it stood alone and brazen…

"Are you not a Catholic, detective?" there was a superiority in the man's tone, an edge, "Is it not against your own Catholic faith to use contraception with your wife?"

 _George nearly laid an egg._

The hesitation, before the detective would answer, the sounds of the carriage rattling past them all, the detective's distinctly large brown eyes, oddly piercing and kind, as they held to those of Mr. Nelson, only intensified the moment. The silence was palpable.

"Such matters are between God, myself, and my wife. You are not among one of those three," William asserted. His body language was strong, resolved, confident as he closed the gate, leaving the reporters rebuilding their barrage of questions. It was their job to fire away these questions at a given target. But, everyone present knew it was pointless, they were done here for the night.

Teddy Nelson, though, he had felt the bite, the sting, from Detective Murdoch's response. He had been so much as told that he had no right to claim to know the ways of God… by a Catholic man. He would fight fire with fire. Yes, he boarded up on his carriage from the Toronto Gazette, also having gotten the message loud and clear that any news-collecting from the Murdoch Body Farm was over and done with. He was far from done, however. Teddy Nelson's next stop was Detective William Murdoch's Catholic Church.

)

Wisely, Julia had planned to stay inside the lab when William arrived with the carriage. The students had left. The reporters had stayed. She had watched William deal with the reporters through the window, Jake Castern having alerted her once the detective had pulled up at the gate.

"Brilliant, he thought to bring the morgue carriage," she said aloud, "And George." She fought the urge to hop up and down as she waited for them to get into the building. She had curbed her desire to dive into his arms by the time he stepped in.

"Constable Crabtree," the doctor's happy words greeted, as her body betrayed her true desires and she moved to her husband. She stopped and stood before him. "Detective," _and there they were, those gorgeous William eyes…_

"Doctor," came his response, _so arousing, the way he tipped his hat._

 _She could almost smell the park from this morning, she felt so similar with him, here, now, as she did with him this morning. Amazing, it felt like that was days ago._ His sweet wrinkle at the corner of his mouth, told her he, too, was remembering this morning, and too, telling that things had gone rather downhill since then.

It was William who set the tone, "So doctor, Mr. Castern, what have you?"

They were brought up to date. Mr. Castern and the students had managed to get the body into the box and up here to the lab from where it was dumped. The victim was found without any clothing, shot with what was most likely a rifle, point blank to the back of the head. The large exit wound through the face would make it quite a bit harder to identify him than usual. While they had waited, Julia had taken fingermarks. There were no obvious identifying marks on the body, no tattoos or noticeable scars. The victim was male, early thirties, in quite good shape. Time of death was between 18-24 hours ago.

Julia stepped back from the body. "As to the location where the body was found, the killer, or at least the man who carried the body in from the road, and it was a man, and a big man at that…" She saw the question forming on William's face and rushed to answer it, "There were two footprints – a left and a right, a matching set." Charmingly, she smiled as William showed her his satisfaction with her answer before she had actually finished, "Looked like a big man's boot. I had the students take pictures of each, next to a ruler…"

"George, we'll want to make casts," William instructed.

Julia directed them to the plastering materials she had already laid out expecting his plans. George got right to work mixing the plaster.

"Any other evidence?" William asked. He wrinkled his face apologizing, hoping, "Perhaps a bullet?" _Of course, he kicked himself, for he knew finding a bullet was unlikely – there was an exit wound, and there was no evidence that the victim had been shot here._ He sighed… _It seems the press was right, killers do think they can use this place as their dumping grounds._ Anger surged, twitching his fingers, as he thought to himself, " _No William, they don't_ _ **think**_ _it. They actually_ _ **DO**_ _it._ "

Julia had giggled at his suggestion of a bullet. "No bullet I'm afraid, detective" she said with a soft scolding, then back to business, "There were some wheelmarks next to the road. We photographed those too, but you'll likely make cast impressions of them as well…" She looked for his nod, and his nod to George to make more plaster. "And the grass had been disturbed along the path the killer must have used. Seemed to be only one man who carried the body in. He's a big man, our victim… The killer must've been strong. We checked systematically and thoroughly, using a grid method, for any pieces of fabric that might've gotten caught on the weeds or brush, or for anything that might have been dropped," She shook her head, "Sorry for not finding more."

William decided to look on the bright side. _His wife was an expert at this. She had had the help of her well-trained students. They had done a good job_. He glanced over to George, the plaster was ready. His eyes travelled to the door. He stepped closer to his wife, stood closer to her than one would in a professional capacity. "It looks like you have done most of our job here," he smiled, taking a moment to adore her, for so many reasons. "There's still daylight. I suppose we should have a look," he suggested.

Julia moved to the door, leading the way.

)

Soon left alone to make the casts, George got right to talking. "The victim was…" he paused, searched for the word, "well-built…"

William chuckled to himself, thinking, " _Much too good-looking, in my opinion, for Julia to be around, I'll tell you that much._ " Of course, he told George nothing. "Your point, George," he said.

"Well sir, I wonder if the ladies noticed?" George raised.

His mind flashed it at him, in quick succession, all those connections. William saw it over again, _Julia,_ she was so young then _, squatted down over the dead boxer, and her admiring, practically drooling over, the victim's muscular arms… "He's quite the physical specimen, isn't he? Look at the size of his arms,_ " William reheard her breathy, squeaky sweet voice in his head. _Furious, the way his jealousy seized him, inspiring him, demanding, that_ _ **he be**_ _the one she lusted after like that, and driving him to start lifting and working out with weights._ " _Yes, the ladies… Julia, would have most certainly noticed,_ " he thought, re-feeling the jealousy once more. "Most likely," he answered plainly.

 _Uncanny, the way George seemed to follow much the same mental path_. "You know, sir, I've been working out, ever since I jumped into that wrestling match…" George's eyes met William's, checking to see if the detective remembered the time. Satisfied, he went on, "I wanted Edna to find me more attractive. I remember, sir, that you suggested it then…"

William nodded. He remembered.

"You work out, sir…"

 _William was unsure whether it was a question or a statement_. He started to answer, "Ye…"

"You're quite muscled and fit… I've, er, noticed," George explained, suddenly feeling the heat of discomfort rising up his neck. "I mean, not that I find you to be attractive, sir… I mean, of course, you're attractive, _but I don't_ find y…"

William practically shouted, "Let's get back to the case George."

)

The sun was setting as their morgue carriage, complete with its three tired passengers and the big, long box containing the newest victim, rattled around the turn to Stationhouse #4's street. William spoke, breaking what had been a long, comfortable silence between himself, Julia and George. "We'll pull into the morgue. George and I can bring in the body," he said.

By the time the three of them stepped back out into the side driveway, it had grown dark enough that Julia needed to turn on the outside light. "I'll help Julia with the horses, George. You can head home. Thanks for your help," William offered.

"You're very welcome, sir. Goodnight then," he answered.

In leaving, George sought to part by giving the doctor solace and support in light of the awful newspaper coverage she was being burdened under, saying, "And goodnight too, Dr. Ogden. And stay strong and keep heart. Those reporters are a brutal bunch. It seems you went from being Toronto's "Favorite Couple" to its most spurned, overnight. But… things'll look up, just hang in there."

She responded simply, "Thank you, George. Have a goodnight."

As she walked with William to unharness the horses, she wondered of him, "The reporters at the body farm… George anticipates the press will be blasting us… about there being more bodies again?"

William replied, "Perhaps." _It haunted though, in the back of his mind as they worked together, what he knew George was really referring to, that it was much more than that, much worse than that_. He needed to tell Julia about the adoption article, about how it had been detailed, and heartless, in its claims about their motivations to adopt.

Finished with the carriage, now only the work of preparing the body for the cold storage and tomorrow's more complete post-mortem, the couple stood together outside the big side door, the one that would bang loudly if you didn't hold it while it closed, in the dim light, peppered with fluttering moth shadows. They felt close to each other, exhausted and close. Julia stepped closer and said, slipping her hands up his lapels and then around his neck, "William Murdoch, you are wonderful," she told him.

"I'm glad you think so," he replied, bringing his hands to his wife's hips, holding eye contact, unblinking.

"It's astounding," she went on, "How after all this time I'm so amazingly, head-over-heels in love with you."

"Of this, too," he said, leaning closer, and with a nod, "I am glad." And with that he took her in his arms, held her. She felt her body relax, his unique, Chinese-herbed, Williamy, smell sinking into her being, drowning away the odors of death, dissipating so much of the day's fears and worries and struggles. His voice was so low, her ear feeling its vibrations as much as hearing them, as he offered to come inside and help her, "It will get you… us, home sooner," he said.

Julia turned her head so her lips hovered at his ear. "Go home, William," she countered, leaning even closer, letting her cheek rub against his. "You can tuck William Jr. into bed – it makes a difference to him… having at least one of us there." Julia stepped back and reached up to cup his face. _His afternoon shadow had grown stubbly, and again her mind, this time taking her body along for the luscious ride, reminded her with its string of flashes, of their morning, of their mid-night stormy lovemaking in the thunder and the lightning, and then of the rugged way, later in the golden dawn, he had had his way with her, pinning her wrists above her head, ravaging her so delightfully. It seemed so very long ago._ Not expecting it…

He said, "There's something I wanted to speak with you about." She noticed, his inhale was jagged, sensed how he held his breath.

"Sounds ominous. Can it keep…" she asked, revealing her suspicions, _suspicions that were correct_ , that it would be an unpleasant conversation, "Till I get home?"

"It can," he accepted, with a slight feeling of relief warning him that he was being a coward. "I'll bring your flowers home for you, set them up in your favorite vase…" William grasped one of her willowy curls, "Have a whisky ready?" he coaxed with a wrinkle, for he wanted her to be quick.

"That would be lovely," she kissed his cheek. "You offer good bribes, husband," she teased.

"Good," he said with a gentlemanly bow, and left her to it.

)

"Here's Blanco," his Daddy whispered softly.

 _His big, strong, wonderful Daddy loved him, adored him, William Jr. knew it in every bone in his body. Yummy, the sensation of his skin sliding on the sheets, smooth, and still cool, from being out in their backyard, looking at the stars. Daddy had put him up on his tall, tall shoulders – so he could see the Moon rising over the trees! Next to his cheek, the fluffy, soft rabbit felt so warm._ Something about that night air… and the mellow, rumbly, sound of his Daddy's voice… all around… made him… so… sleepy…

)

"I decided to check Miss James' work and sign off on Mr. Atkins' postmortem," Julia explained to him when she unpinned her hat and rested it temporarily down on the foyer table. It was later than either of them would have liked, after a long and trying day, and he would care for her. William warmed up some dinner while she poured herself a drink and sat at the kitchen table.

The orange-red roses struck her as stunning, there in the center of the table. Her mind ran the memory _of William bringing her flowers after they had first married, promising to, "never stop courting her." The man keeps his promises,_ she told herself. She giggled, just as he reached from behind her to put her plate down, and he paused there to tuck his face into her neck, take a deep whiff of her, kiss her tender skin.

"What? What's so funny Mrs. Murdoch?" he touched her…

His lovely humid voice muffled in her neck, stirring her lusty urges, and mingling with her famished stomach, and her twisting womb, and her watering mouth, and still the tickle of the memory that had prompted her giggle danced in the foreground…

 _Oh, how she wished he would ramp up his advances_ , and she melted with the joy of the succulent flavors of Eloise's casserole flooding through her every taste bud, so mushy and warm, and she told him with her mouth full, and feeling so very glad to be HOME, that the roses had made her remember the time he had played a trick on her and he had gotten her to sit on a whoopy cushion, and it was so out of character for him, for he had laughed so hard at his own prank, and _My God_ , she loved him so much.

William suggested a hot bath. She didn't even need to answer, her moan, her anticipation of its heaven, so obvious. He went upstairs to prepare it.

)

Deliciously pampered, Julia's clean, smooth body cloaked in merely a towel, she gazed down at their sleeping boy, his beautiful face all that was touched by the sliver of light beaming through the door. Somehow, it always worked, looking at this baby, and having the cares and worries drop away. Amazing the way babies sleep so soundly, she stroked his black, curly hair and treasured those long, dark lashes of his. She loved that it was so obvious that he was the child of William Murdoch.

)

" _Perfect timing_ ," her mind trumpeted her good fortune, as she stepped into their bedroom, reclosing the door behind her. _Yes, it was quite opportune_ , for there, right before her wide and hungry eyes, was her husband, his hunky, squared-off buttocks plainly in view, as he was bent over and stepping his fully naked and gorgeous self into his pajama bottoms. Rapidly covered, now it was the marks, _her marks_ , scratched into his solid, firm back that caught her eye, surging a second cramping and twisting tweak through her core with a jolt, _sparking the memory of being under him, so magnificently, and thoroughly, underneath him, as he thrust and thrust and thrust his love for her, pumping up the internal inferno of unbearable pressure inside of her, and she dug into him, held on to him, pulled him closer, with all her might…_

He turned to her, bare-chested in that pleasing, low, bedroom light, and he was breathtaking. She had been so exhausted, had wanted only to lie flat in their soft bed and fall away to sleep, but now…

Sultry, her tone as she said, "It looks like you have run into a jungle-cat, detective." His eyes, his face, took on that edge, _that twinkle_ , but… so unusual, unfamiliar, for her to also be weighted by such hefty fatigue.

He stepped to her, "That I did," he said.

 _It was unfortunate_ , she thought, the change showing on her face, preparing him.

"I'm too tired, I think, tonight," she told him, with a wrinkle at the corner of her mouth, her apology.

"Of course," he replied.

He gave her a quick kiss, and then turned away quickly, pushing down his urges, knowing it was best NOT to see her drop her towel. He got into their bed, feigned interest in a periodical article he had been reading for days now, on the design of rotary saw devices used in industry. _The inventor in him had been thinking of can-openers. There must be a way to make them cut all the way around the circumference of the lid… The appliance could be mounted on the wall, and powered by electricity_. But now, now he was not in inventor mode, he was in _lover_ mode, and he was fighting to put out the fire of his manly, primal urges, to shift back into _loving husband_ mode. He heard her moving about, saw her off in the distance, on the edges of the page, he knew she was naked… " _Keep your nose in the journal, William_ ," he coached himself, as he heard her reach for her robe. " _Her robe!"_ William's body reacted to the information, " _She's NOT putting on her nightgown, she'll take off the robe… she'll be getting into bed bare-naked!_ " His anticipation growing, he tried to focus on the printed words… " _Words, they're words, William_." He recited the article to himself in his head, spotting, tracing the lines with his finger, trying, so very hard, to focus on a section he had previously underlined, _"…functions much like rotating gears under a conveyor belt that delivers wood to a rotary saw blade, but with the conveyor belt removed."_

Julia crawled into bed, under the covers, propped herself up on an elbow next to him and gave him a quick peck goodnight on his cheek, then she rolled over, away from him, onto her side. He looked, saw her small, round shoulders… _she was naked as he had expected_ , and he noticed those delightful freckles sprinkled all about. And then, William's mind flickered a memory, of a wild fantasy he had had long ago, of Julia, turning her back to him, standing before him completely naked, in the morgue – back when Ruby had told of Julia's being arrested, and he had been bold enough to ask Julia about it, and she had told him of her skinny-dipping off of Hanlan's Point… ' **sans clothing**.' He had seen it then, in his vivid imaginings, her naked skin… _How did he know she would have these freckles… that she would be so very beautiful?_ he wondered.

He invited her to lie on him, to rest her body on his body, as they both were so want to do.

"My hair is too wet, William," she answered, explaining, but in her mind, she was figuring it might be for the best not to tempt him.

"That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," he charmed.

Happy to oblige him, for she longed to be close to him herself, Julia rolled all the way over and slipped her silky-smooth, long leg up over him, then she reached up and twisted her hair into a semi-braid which she pulled forward over her chest, and she pressed down into him, her body so, so soft and plush, and moldable to his, her damp head feeling cold at first, on his skin. " _Relaxed, you're limp and soft_ ," William told himself. _You kept this under control for eight long years, you can get through it tonight._

She wiggled a bit against him, nestling, settling. Her breath, warm, flowed over his flesh, and she apologized, "I hope you'll be able to forgive me for being so tired tonight, William." She didn't have to lift her head, to turn to look at his face, to know that he had wrinkled a corner of his mouth. He was truly delectable, unable to deny he was finding staying reined-in to be a struggle.

She giggled. Then she helped, rising up to take his periodical from him and rest it on his night table, then settle back down on top of him to ask, "What was it you had wanted to talk to me about?"

" _Well, that surely worked_ ," he thought, as a modicum of dread washed away his loitering lust. He cleared his throat, and tellingly reached up to rub his forehead. "Mr. Harlen… from the orphanage…" William felt her nod, "He called today. He said he knew we were waiting for news of their decision…"

Julia frowned against his skin, then turned and kissed his chest tenderly, she sensed the answer was no.

William frowned too. "They turned us down," he said directly, "He said there was an official letter with their rejection in the post." That part concluded, William found he was mustering up the nerve to get to the worst of it. Edgy and uncomfortable, he shifted under her. He wanted his arms around her, he wanted to shelter her from it all. One hand reached for her braid of hair, fiddled with it, his other scooped tighter around her back and traced its caress over her bare shoulder. He fought clearing his throat again, and he heard his own voice dry as he said, "I think the press questioned some members of the board. Um, there was an article… in the paper today…"

 _Now, Julia Ogden was an incredibly strong woman_ , and she sensed his worry, and she strove to comfort him, to reassure him… that she could take it. And her way, Julia Ogden's way, was to go at a problem head-on, and so she said, "That explains the abhorrent questions that that weaselly reporter from the Gazette asked today. Truly awful. Like it was any business _**of his**_ if we use contraception. And then to accuse me of wanting to _spare my body_ … to be able to _keep working_ , that these would be reasons _I would choose_ to adopt rather than have _your_ child." As she told it, the fire in her belly flared into full-fledged fury. _Darn, it ticked her off!_

 _Intriguingly, Julia's anger charged William's, and he found he felt stronger now, less powerless. His wife was truly wonderful, he told himself._

William felt Julia settle herself, nuzzle closer, sigh, push her anger away.

"Well," she reasoned, "When you fall off a horse, you need to dust yourself off and then get right back on, don't you?"

He squeezed her tighter. "Mm-hmm," he answered, basking in his admiration of this woman.

"We have an appointment with Calvin Baker at Baker House the day after tomorrow…" she reminded.

"Yes," he agreed.

"Right back on the horse then, do you not agree, Mr. Murdoch?"

"Very good, Mrs. Murdoch," he squeezed her again, and then reached over and clicked out the light. "Very good, indeed," he said.

)

But, William was troubled and found he could not sleep. Frustrated, he finally yielded to the truth of it, and got up out of bed, went down to kitchen in the middle of the night, and made himself a cup of hot chocolate. As they each tended to do, he made a cup for Julia too, left it in the pan on the stove for her in case she came down. Tonight… she did not come, and he sat there at the kitchen table, alone. He had saved the newspaper, and against his better judgement, he sat there staring down at the dreadful article and letting all the thoughts clash and fly and tumble about inside of him.

With a big sigh, William rubbed and rubbed at his brow. He had come to some conclusions, and a big one was that there was so much more to lose, now, now than there ever had been before in his life. And at the core of it, it would always hang there in the secret darkness, was the fact that Julia Ogden had had an abortion, and because of that fact, he knew he could lose her, William Jr. could lose her, and it terrified him. And now there was this new danger, that they had broken the law in another way, by using contraceptives. And it infuriated him that society would force its way into their private lives and feel it had the right to jail them, the sting of it even more profound because they did it to keep his wife alive!

A big release of breath flew out of him – trying, he was trying. He needed to calm down… He knew he needed to calm down.

A thought gurgled up. " _Eloise! Eloise would know they had used prophylactics!"_ it shook him, " _She would have seen them when cleaning! But…_ " William chased down the timeline. _He hadn't used a condom since Julia got pregnant… even quite a while before that – that was part of the problem, that was why she had gotten pregnant… really a blessing in the end._ His heart lifted for a moment with the reminder of the miracle of their having had William Jr. at all. _Eloise didn't come work for us until we left the hotel and came here to this house, and Julia was already pregnant then. And then, after William Jr. was born Isaac advised us that it was even more unlikely that Julia would ever be able to get pregnant again._ Relieved, William concluded that Eloise would not be privy to that incriminating piece of information, at least, not that particular piece.

As to the badgering they were getting by being under the press' microscope as they pursued the adoption of a sibling for William Jr., Julia and he had both agreed that another child was something they wanted greatly, and Julia… they, would be able to persevere through the worst of it, he was certain. " _Of course, the press would press on_ ," he warned himself. Surprising himself, he chuckled, at his own pun. Delighted in thinking that if Julia had been the one to say it she would have pouted when he did not laugh, and then she would have made it worse by endearingly explaining why the joke was funny, the ultimate proof that it was not, and with all that, his heart warmed, and he realized he felt better, and he went back upstairs, and finally, William Murdoch joined his wife in sleep.

)

Her arms full of grocery bags, Eloise made an effort to keep the noise down as she dumped them temporarily onto the kitchen table. She had the detective's newspapers – today she had gotten him two, for the Murdoch's were front-page news, it seemed. As she put the papers down on the window ledge for him, as was their custom, she noted that he had left yesterday's paper there… but it was folded, opened to the page with the story about the couple's efforts in adopting a baby being thwarted at every turn. " _It had been read_ ," she concluded, " _Quite a bit, by the look of it_ ," she frowned thinking of the hardship the article had likely caused them. Eloise adored this couple, as she believed did most of Toronto. But in her case, she knew them much better, and they each had a special place in her heart, and she knew herself, _she felt riled_ , like a mama bear when her cubs are being threatened.

Putting two and two together, she deduced a connection between the hurtful story and the presence of a dirty hot chocolate cup that had been left on the countertop… and the pan used to make the soothing elixir in the sink. _One of them couldn't sleep last night. Too bad it was only one. These two help each other more than any couple she'd ever known. They were better when they were together._ " _My goodness_ ," she panicked, " _I hope this whole mess hasn't pressured them into having one of their fights._ " She ran back her memory of coming in just now. She had to admit it, she had a habit of checking. _Nope, she was sure of it, the detective did not spend the night on the couch._ That was a relief, at least.

As she went about her work, Eloise found herself entertaining the idea that the detective would have been able to tell _which one_ of the Murdoch's had been the one up late last night. He would use fingermarks, she was sure he could recognize his own and the doctor's, purely by memory. " _Oh!"_ she stumbled on a thought, " _Maybe even from the lip print?!_ " Holding the cup up to better see the lip marks in the light, she wondered if that was something the man could do.

Despite herself, for she was worried that the news in the papers would be rather upsetting for them, Eloise fell into a pleasant humming as her routines took hold. The stories waited there on the ledge, one claiming the Murdoch's were too weird to be trusted, and that the government should take legal action to forcefully close their Body Farm so as to stop murderers from using it as a dumping ground. Another was a bit less one-sided, but held that the Murdoch's were extremely macabre, always dealing with gruesome and grisly crimes, and that they were unfit as parents because they were too strange, and even immoral. Further, the _other_ front-page news – that the doctor who had been set to hang in just a few days, for committing murder with his abortions, had escaped… Even this seemingly unrelated news was likely to bring her beloved employers stress, for in both of the papers, a connection was drawn between this abortion doctor and Dr. Ogden, highlighting her arrests for teaching women about contraception. It seemed to be part of the horrible wave they were being slammed under right now, the press digging up every negative thing they could about the Murdoch's. It would be very difficult, not to be on the edge.

)

 **The knock at the door surprised him. It was too late for anyone… A panic flew through him.** _ **It would be Julia!**_ **He had just gotten her to take Arlene Dennett back home. The schoolgirl obviously had a crush on him, and he had had to call Julia to save himself from the amorous teen's sexual advances, and to take her home for him.** _ **And now, Oh My God!**_ **She had come back to tell him how dangerous it was for his reputation – for his job, to scold him for having a schoolgirl like that in his room at night!**

" _ **Strange!**_ **" was the** _ **second**_ **thing he thought when he opened the door to find that it was Julia, and that she was dressed…** _ **Mm–mm-mm-mm-mm**_ **, how she was dressed! "** _ **Was that a silk corset**_ **?** _ **It's so thin?**_ **" his brain inquired, while his groin, his whole body really, reoriented towards her, striving to touch her as he stood there – mouth opened, eyes wide, weak-kneed, and dazed.**

" **Julia," he finally found some semblance of words and greeted. "What on Earth…"**

 **She slipped her hand along his undershirt-hugged chest as she stepped past him. "I told Mrs. Kitchen I left something here," she explained perusing the room.**

 **He felt his legs buckle underneath him with the wave of lust that rolled up from the floor, for he had noticed the two round, plump, cheeks of her buttocks peeking out from under… what were those… tiny pants?**

 **Her eyes hung too long on the bed, before spotting the stethoscope on the side table. "There it is," she offered proof. Her eyes caught his.**

 _ **She was, always had been, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.**_

" **Close the door, William," she requested.**

 **Overwhelming, his groin's responding, throbbing, burning, surging. He couldn't believe himself as he leaned back against the hard, wooden surface and heard the little, tiny, click. He was yelling at himself not to, but his eyes traveled her body, relished and toured and fantasized about her body.**

 **William swallowed, and cleared his throat, and swallowed again before he said, "I… I, um, I thought… Julia, what are you doing? I… I don't understand. You're engage…"**

" **I wanted you to see what it feels like to open the door to such… temptation, William. The girl is clearly obsessed with you. And you open the door… like that," she said it with such a lusting in her tone. And her eyes widened and sucked in the view of him. "It is a very tight undershirt, William. You can see every contoured… magnificent, bulge of you through it. I must say, it makes you want to touch. And if a girl lets herself imagine… And I do believe that Arlene did more than just imagine, William, for when I came in she was pressed right up against…" Julia's eyes dropped back down to William's chest and she moved closer to him, never taking her eyes off of what she wanted, "That hard, strong body."**

 _ **He was so struck that he remained paralyzed, as he watched and spun with desire and such an intense longing…**_

" **I made that mistake. And once I had imagined it, I was done for, William," she said, thinking it explained more than she had intended. The force between them ramped up as she stepped closer to him, and lowered her voice to match their proximity. "William, we have been resisting each other for years, dancing around each other for years, as the Inspector says…" she said, now so close their auras flared and tingled. She took her stethoscope and lifted her arms to place the earpieces to his ears. She loved it, sensing his eyes engulfing her curvy, full, creamy cleavage. "I think I have diagnosed the problem," she lured. Julia took his hand, lifted it up to take the end of the stethoscope and guided it to her heart. "Listen," she whispered enticingly, "I think it's broken."**

" **Julia… I, I don't know what to…" he puzzled.**

 **Then she guided his hand, with her hand, to his chest. "I think yours is too," she whispered to him.**

 **He nodded, for he knew it was true, and just a little, his eyes welled up. And that seemed to collapse her resolve, and she rose her delightful voice into such a sweet squeaking, and she swore her undying love for him.**

 **It took so little to ignite the flame, really. Just a slight tilt of her head, inviting him. And the whirlwind rushed in. They would never be close enough to each other, never… the stethoscope flung across the room, their lips locked, tongues invading, thundered by their moans. Hands kneading, starved and exhilarated, marveling in his hardness, her softness. "My God you feel good," she said, breathless, and tucking and rubbing her pelvis into him, exaggerating their shared awareness of his bulging readiness, as she moved in rippling waves of seduction, into him, into him, into him, over and over again.**

" **Can you take it off?" she whispered.**

 **And very much wanting to, William stepped back. His eyes glowed and twinkled so as he looked past each little, black string in the column at the center of her silk corset, and through them, under them, he prayed to be pressed into her luscious flesh, creamy, and pink, and curvy, and…**

 **He nodded, words now long gone, and reached down…**

 **She gasped with anticipation, but then her look became one of bewilderment, as he reached into his trousers pocket and pulled out his penknife.** _ **Pop**_ **, he placed the blade under the top string and pulled it tighter and tighter, it suddenly giving way and popping opened, revealing a wave of jiggles in her newly exposed cleavage between her rounded, pliable, bosoms. He did it again to the next string in the line, freeing more of her tangy, sassy orbs, lower, and then the next, and then the next… until her corset dropped to the floor.** _ **Oh, what he pictured himself doing with his hands on her, his mouth on her, pillowed in her**_ **.**

 **Julia took hold of his hands and brought them up to the outsides of her bosom, his thumbs reaching for and sliding over her pink, pert centers, as she clasped her fingers around his and pushed and molded and moved her squishy, supple flesh with his big hands. "I meant your undershirt…" she confided, "could you take off your undershirt…" she giggled. So rushed, she tugged and grabbed at his undershirt, frantically untucking it from his trousers, lifting it, between her kisses, to get it over his head. She electrified him, slipping her hand to his trouser button.**

" **Julia, the bed… it squeaks and the headboard will ram…" he worried.**

" **William, don't ruin it," she chided.**

 **With such a wallop it hit them, this second wave, tidal in proportion, soaring them upward to mountainous heights, landing them with a lovely thud on his mattress, Julia so vulnerable underneath him.** _ **He would take her. My God – he would take her**_ **.**

" **I'm afraid I will be noisier than the bed," she warned with a giggle.**

 **Her breath caught, thrilling him to the bone as he pushed her scrumptious smooth thigh over, to widen her, to open her to him. He nearly plummeted off of the Earth, with the delicious, slippery, warm feel of her as he touched her, and her wild moan, so close, inside his ear, rumbling each and every atom in his soul, as he snuck closer.**

" **Please William… My God please," she breathed, lush and humid and naughty, as she reached behind him solidly taking a hold of his well-built buttocks with her grasp, nudged and tucked and wiggled to try to get under him. "Please… I want you," she urged him.**

 **Savage, ferocious, he mounted her, fierce with his spinning, undeniable, unbearable need. So sweet, so forbidden, the rupture as he began, and she surrendered to him, and he moved deeper, and her moans melded with his, for he had never dreamed of something so luscious. His first, powerful thrust of lovemaking, staggering, with its magnitude, seeming to push the air, in a gush, out of her. Then again, and that lovely sound from her, and again. The pace picked up, and the tension built.**

" **Don't stop, William… Hurry, hurry," she begged him.**

 **Driving him harder and harder, he pounded.**

 **The gravity, the world, tilted. It was coming. It was humungous, the breath-stealing, dizzying pause of the upsurge. It would be unbearable, delicious, when it hit…**

" **Mmm," he absorbed the impact of the first roaring crash.** _ **More, he wanted more**_ **, he pumped and pumped, each succulent ripple rewarding him with her warm sweetness to his core. This woman was delicious, absolutely delicious, the juiciness passed through him, and he stretched for the last morsel of her, the last drop.**

" **I love you so much, Julia," his exhausted, spent, pleasured vows surrounded his own awareness. And William woke, in their bed… Only to discover he was alone, then detecting the physical evidence of what had happened in his dream. Shame wafted over him, only to rapidly disperse. The warm, pleasant feeling, full, throughout his whole body, brought back the wonderful memory of the dream. "** _ **I haven't had that one for a while**_ **," he thought as reality came into focus.**

)

When she found him, he had just finished his shaving. His eyes dropped down to her blouse, noting she was already dressed for the day. But, _mmm_ , she had chosen to put on THAT blouse, that irresistible blouse, the one that was low-cut and revealing, tight, displaying her shapeliness, and it had those touchable, soft, plump, silk-covered buttons. His eyes stuck to her bosom, he sensed her smile more than actually saw it.

William pinned her against the wall. Wanting to touch her, undo those buttons, but instead, he took a mischievous curl in his fingers.

"I've been thinking about our problems with the press, and the orphanages," she started the serious conversation. "I think we just need to stay on course, William… just to press on."

He lifted an eyebrow at her and waited, for he found the irony, of her making the same pun he had thought of last night, to be astounding. He would push it a bit. "Press on," he repeated.

She giggled, brightening the world, "Yes. _Press on_. It's the only way to handle the badgering press, and the stifling judgmentalness of our society."

"Good," William's voice had a raspiness to it, as he leaned to her ear. His mouth took her neck, and she melted with the desire tweaking her womb. "William," she complained, yet her breathiness betrayed her wanting, "I'm completely dressed."

Oh, how she loved his laugh, in this case, so cocky and devilish.

"You _**were**_ completely dressed," he teased, as his fingers popped opened her buttons, and she felt his breath cascade over her exposed flesh, "It's the risk you take, doctor, when you choose to put on _THIS_ blouse."

"I see," she savored in the euphoric sensations his attentions fluttered inside of her, "I guess it's your favorite."

Abruptly, their bedroom door widened, and the joyous giggles and pattering footsteps of William Jr. cascaded into the room. "Daddy!" he exclaimed, diving his arms around William's legs.

"Good morning, little man," William greeted, lifting the boy up into his arms.

"Bouncy! Bouncy!" the boy urged his father to toss him around for the sheer thrill of it.

 _Of course, his Daddy obliged._

Claire-Marie dashed in. "So sorry, doctor," the nanny hurried to say. "He just… took off…"

"Don't fret," Julia reassured, her eyes watched and as William bounded their child in the air, "He is quite the little Houdini."

Claire-Marie stood, paused, staring momentarily down, her eyes going wide with the sight of her employer's unbuttoned blouse and revealed cleavage. Her mind envied her, _truth be told, the woman looked good._ Recovering herself, Claire-Marie opened her arms and let William deposit the toddler in them. Having gained control over her lustful curiosity, she managed _not_ to let her eyes explore the gorgeous man's bare chest. She walked out talking to the boy, encouraging him that they had a fun day ahead, "Remember, we're going to the zoo… with Alice. Remember little Alice, hmm?"

William's eyes dropped down to his wife's bosom, so smug his expression. "You're blushing, doctor," he teased her

"Ugh," she gave him a playful shove. "And whose fault is that!" she accused.

William's reaction filled her with glee, _for she so adored his laugh_ , and she could not resist joining him as he fell into a hearty chuckle. "That's a guilty laugh, William Murdoch, a guilty laugh."

)

By the time William joined them downstairs for breakfast, Julia already had the paper sprawled out in front of her. The top headline caught his eye first – the abortion doctor set to hang had escaped!

"Good morning," he announced to the room. "Breakfast smells wonderful, Eloise," he thanked her, "and I see we have _a few_ newspapers this morning."

His tardiness the final clue, she had concluded that it was the detective who had been up late last night, troubled. Still, she would not beat around the bush. "Yes, you two are front-page news again, detective" she warned him.

William kissed both his son and his wife before taking his seat at the table. He noted the orange-red roses still brightened the kitchen. He picked up the other paper, this one the Toronto Daily Star, and flipped it over to the lower-half of the front page. The photograph there, big and centered, was striking. It was himself and Julia – in silhouette, and they were standing close, engaged in a kiss. In the background was the park, and Mr. Atkins' body laid out on the ground, and so glaringly, the knife sticking straight-up into the air from out of the dead man's chest. The headline read, "Macabre Murdoch's, A Blessing or a Curse." It seemed most of the article attacked them for their Body Farm providing murderers with a place to dump their victim's bodies. It also insinuated that their distinct "oddness," their daily dealings with the, "darker side of life," and their "modernness," rendered them unsuitable parents.

William's frown did not go unnoticed. "What is it?" Julia asked. He shared the story with her, and they spoke once more about being hounded by the press, and fighting against the tendency for the attacks to make them see themselves as they currently were being presented to the world, through that critical, harsh, lens, as disgusting, unworthy, and thoroughly covered in mud.

Eloise informed them that she had been followed by a reporter to the market this morning. She proudly explained that she had not said a word to the man. Needless to say, however, the news of the outward spiraling of the press' harassment served to irritate William and Julia further.

Julia got up to leave first, as William was running late and intended to ride his bicycle to the station, and she was compelled to start the postmortem on the body they had found yesterday dumped on their property. They were both expecting that the press would be clambering for a quick solution of the crime.

She rushed back into the kitchen, bothered. **A mob of reporters stood waiting at their front gate**! It looked to be a hard day ahead. They agreed that William would call Enid… to cancel their planned outing to the zoo with William Jr., his nanny, Claire-Marie, Enid, and her baby daughter Alice. It was to have been the first playdate their son would have with the child of the newly married woman who William had once courted, since they had had a chance encounter at William's baseball game this past summer. William and Julia reasoned that the news coverage would only take advantage of the fact that it was _**not**_ their son's mother who spent time with the boy, thus using it as more evidence that Julia was an unfit mother. It would only add fuel to their fire.

With a kiss good-bye at the door, the couple agreed, reinforced each other once more, that they would press on through it all. Press on, indeed.


	4. 4: Still Counting SheepT

The Lady, Or the Tiger, Chapter 4 – Still Counting Sheep_T

) (

It had been rising up inside of him in waves for nearly two hours now, frustration, frustration which William would rationalize away, push back down. He had come to expect it to re-emerge. William's forehead was reddened from all his subconscious rubbing, and his eyes were sore, the squiggly fingermark patterns on the cards sometimes blurried by their efforts to tear-up, to lubricate, to cope with the strain of reading the marks, searching for a match. This case promised to be trying, the victim found dumped _on their property_ – their body farm, the press having a heyday with that, the victim's exit wound through the face, and now, his seeming lack of matching fingermarks in the system rendering him unidentifiable. Not to mention the papers circling the wagons around himself and Julia, becoming suspicious, some of them even rabid in their dogged questioning about their alleged use of contraception being linked to their desire to adopt… and desire that was being foiled at every turn…

With his billionth sigh, he glanced out into the bullpen. Crabtree and Higgins each held fingermark cards and a magnifying glass - working, but their conversation was lively. William's mind shot back to his talking with George on the carriage ride up to the Body Farm yesterday. Discomfort flooded through him as he pictured the two men out there now, conferring about himself, about Julia.

He was up, homburg on, before he had consciously decided. _He would go to the flower shop. His wife was most assuredly in need of some courting, and thankfully, such matters were up to him_. _Besides, the timing would be opportune, Julia most likely ready to give him her initial findings from her postmortem by the time he returned._

Glad he had taken his bicycle this morning, William walked out of the stationhouse, erupting the pool of reporters into a flutter, and he moved forward directly into the maelstrom. He chanted out his newfound mantra – "I have no comments to make. Please step aside, this is Constabulary business," – as he mounted up and stood on the pedals to gain maximum thrust. No carriage to wait for, he felt a little less like a sitting duck.

The soft rumble of moving air at his ears, his suit jacket lifting on the breeze, his speed picked up, and the burdens lightened. Yesterday's orange-red roses had brought spice and pizzazz to mind. " _Today_ ," he thought, " _Yellow, yellow like the permanence and promise at our wedding."_

 _Earlier this morning_ , his mind dampened his mood with the memory as he rode, _there had been reporters at their home, and then again when he arrived at work._ A few had run from where they had parked themselves outside the morgue as soon as he was spotted pedaling down the street on his bicycle towards the stationhouse, and he knew that _Julia had been harassed when she had arrived at work before him._ Powerful, the mixture of sadness and anger and helplessness the thoughts stirred in him.

Flashes of memories of his efforts, as he had made his way into the building this morning, failed attempts to assuage the buzzing reporters' questions, now wrinkled a corner of his mouth, admitting to his ineptness in the endeavor, as he rode closer to the flower shop. His reasonable claims that he had work to do on the very case that the reporters were complaining about, and that they would better serve the greater good if they would stop pestering him and let him get to it, seemed to only rile them up more. _He counted himself grateful that they had not badgered him about their troubles adopting, about his working wife who wouldn't even take his name when they married, or even worse, about using contraception_. Immediately, the panic blended with his thought, " _At least they hadn't yet…"_ Yes, he was dreadfully aware of the fact that his ploy to use logic and distraction had been failing…

But then, the Inspector 's voice, large and burly, had stolen the show. William had stood by and watched as he was rescued, his superior standing tall at his side.

" _You attack Murdoch here, and our pathologist, when the real monster in this case is the person who shot the victim point blank in the back of his head with a rifle, annihilating the poor bugger's face… and then left him naked as a jaybird, to eliminate any clues,"_ the Inspector's hefty voice replayed in William's head.

His memory re-saw it, a reporter had catcalled loudly _, "Yeah, dumped the body at_ _ **their**_ _morbid, disgusting "Body Farm," that Frankenstein-ian graveyard."_ And then the older man had held up his pencil to his colleagues with an idea. _"Hey, that would make a good headline,"_ he had jabbed _._

" _Bollocks!"_ The Inspector's cane had stretched out, backing the group off. His English face had burned red and he had barked out his orders. _"You lot will bloody well move back…"_ He had boldly pushed forward, herding the bunch of them backwards en masse. _"This is a Constabulary stationhouse, and, believe it or not you lousy tossers, we have work to do."_ The Inspector had then tilted his head over towards William _, "Detective,"_ he confidently had instructed him _, "Have the constables set up a perimeter out here…"_ Then Inspector Brackenreid's attention had returned to the reporters, _"And don't any of you wankers cross it!"_

Turning the corner to the street with the flower shop, William was back on his bicycle, and his scientific mind shifted to the technical matters involved in setting-up an alarm system along the fence-line of their property. He would be meeting their handyman, Jake, there later to install it. Keeping the scrutiny cameras functioning in the cold, and the rain, and all sorts of bad weather, would be problematic to say the least, but at least his plans for using a tripwire would be able to catch any trespassers by surprise, suddenly blasting them with bright lights and starling sounds that would alert even far-off neighbors when triggered. Any resulting photographs of the culprits would have to be seen as a bonus, for now.

Mrs. Jensen's Flower Shop was located conveniently between the stationhouse and the wealthier portions of Toronto. Such locations had always housed Julia, but since they had wed, they also were where he was fortunate to live as well. For such a very long time William had been buying flowers from Mrs. Jensen for Julia… even for a brief time for Enid… William's mind raced away with the memory, _the Inspector once again rescuing him, suggesting flowers as the best way to make-up with a lady._ Most definitely, he was guilty of using the thinly veiled effort to soften Julia's heart after their countless arguments over the years, but surely his favorite time to lavish her with the courting gift, and he believed hers as well, was when he showed up with a bouquet for no specific reason at all. Amazing, the bounce in his step, for this would be one of those times.

)

William held the large morgue door as it closed behind him, stopping its announcement of his arrival. He placed his bouquet of yellow roses down to surprise her with later, next to it his hat, and glanced into the morgue theater. With a smile, he noted she was alone. _Quickly, a flash of memory warmed and electrified him, of quite some time ago, something so simple and yet so rare, her phonograph playing… here… in a morgue, out of place and yet perfect, and he had felt another, stronger, deeper nudge inside of himself telling him that he was right all along, she was the one._

"What have you doctor?" he caused her to turn from the body, and he breathed in the uplifting flush of air the moment her face met his, brightened.

"Detective," her exclamation rich with the more clandestine significance of what they both knew was there.

Playing their professional roles well, she turned her eyes back to the body on the morgue slab as he stepped up beside her. Julia began giving him her report as if reading a text – "The victim is male, physically fit, taller than average, early thirties," but then veered out of the methodical to make a side-note, "Just as we had first figured yesterday, really no birthmarks, or tattoos to help identify him."

Her eyes lifted to meet his, and as happened sometimes, he found himself dwelling on the magnificent blue color, and luring heat, of them.

With a little wrinkle at the corner of her mouth, _he recognized the gesture as his…_

She went on, "No bullet I'm afraid, but I guess we already knew that, with this exit wound." They both stared down at the butchered mess of a face on the slab. "The degree of damage indicates the weapon was a rifle, as we thought…" Julia stepped closer to William, and as she was want to do, _and, oh, how he adored it_ , she began to use _his body_ to demonstrate whatever it was she wanted to report, _and that meant she would be close, he would feel her breath, smell her, she would touch him…_

"The barrel was pressed directly against the back of the skull, at a downward angle. Quite an extreme angle, William," he felt her hand brace across his chest to hold him in place as her other hand pressed into the back of his head with the knuckle of her bent index finger imitating the harsh pressure of the gun. "I suspect the victim was probably down on his knees, with the killer standing behind him," she explained. "Marks on his wrists indicate that he had been handcuffed. Two or three perimortem bruises to his stomach and face – he was beaten just before he was shot…"

"Decisive and cold," William added, his own internal sensations affected by his imagining the inherent helplessness of the victim's situation.

"Very," she agreed, "Death was quick, at least." _Leave it to Julia Ogden to find a bright side._

Ever the detective, William focused back on identifying the victim. "Our efforts at finding matching fingermarks have been unsuccessful," he worried.

"Speaking of fingers," she said, "there were no signs of skin under the fingernails, and no other defensive wounds either, on the hands or arms." She reached under the sheet covering the body and pulled out a hand. She opened the fingers, showing him, "He has callouses, as you can see. But they are not from a lifetime of hard labor. Instead, it seems these were formed within the past year." She rested the hand back down and went off on a tangent, delving into the more personal, "The opposite of you…" then explained, "I um… well your callouses are deep… older…" She reached for his hand and opened it, stroking her fingers over the ridges of its surface, "from years ago, when you worked the lumber camps and the horse ranches." She decided to add a little spice, leaning close and giving him a mischievous nudge, "Except, of course, for when you take up work on some project or another around the house," gracing him with a pleasant smile, "even if they do take you a rather long time to finish."

It would be William who brought them back to the case at hand. "Anything of interest on the body? Some trace evidence, maybe some carpet fibers or such, from when the body was moved?" he pressed, tilting back over the body, inspecting.

Julia's attention went down to the dead body before them, the distance between the two lovers increasing once more. _It was this play, this vibrating, quivering alteration, delightful oscillation, between moving towards and moving apart, that had made their chemistry so entrancing all these years._ Her eyes focused on the victim's brown hair. "Well, as you know, we found him without any clothing on him to analyze. His hair had some grass blades, pollen. There was nothing that is not commonly found in the outdoor areas around our body farm," she stipulated.

"Killed elsewhere," William drew her into his musings, "Either naked when he was shot, perhaps somewhere on route to our property, or the killer removed the clothes after committing the murder. The killer would have had to have gotten blood on his clothing, firing from so close…"

"Not to mention gun-powder residue," she inserted.

"And then he would have had to get rid of his own bloody clothes and the victim's clothing as well…" William concluded his train of thought. _He pictured the killer arriving at their farm in the carriage, lifting the already naked body over his shoulder, wrapped in nothing._

"Time of death?" he asked.

She nodded, "As we speculated, he was killed the night before we found him at our farm."

Thinking of something that could be important, her tone rose and she said, "He had had sexual intercourse before he was killed. There were still remnants of semen present in his penis… and the pH was low…"

" _Acidic,_ " he thought to himself…

"So likely vaginal fluids as well," she deduced.

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth considering the significance. _Possibly with the killer, but if so, then someone_ else _would have had to have dumped the body. A woman would find it too difficult_ , he inferred.

 _Not very satisfactory_ , she thought of his reaction.

Julia sighed and went back to her routine of reporting out the results. "His organs showed nothing unusual. The victim didn't drink. There were no signs of drug use. It will take a while for the analysis of the blood and other fluids to come back..."

 _William had an idea – a flash of remembering George holding up a cigarette butt in the dark of the night, shining his handlight on it._

"Did he show any signs of smoking?" William rushed to ask her. He speculated aloud, "George discovered a cigarette butt in the carriage tire tracks at the side of the road near our property. It had to have been dropped there after the carriage had pulled up… in order not to have been pressed into the ground by the wheel. Perhaps the killer smoked one of the victim's cigarettes – a kind of victory?" he wondered with his customary charming wrinkle at the corner of his mouth showing his doubt.

Julia shook her head, regretting disappointing him. "No. No, the victim's lungs were clean, healthy. No signs of smoking." She knew what he had been hoping, to use the brand of cigarettes to help identify the victim. "You'll have to use the cigarette brand to identify the man who killed him instead, I guess," she encouraged.

"Yes," he nodded, trying to accept the evidence as relevant and helpful. His thoughts extended. " _And it was definitely a man that dumped the body… carried the body himself, only one set of footprints, from a larger than average shoe…"_ He remembered, as he envisioned examining the tracks and making the casts at the scene, that besides the shoeprints, and the tire tracks, he remembered that the horse had also left hoofprints – average sized unfortunately. Though the horse had a unique way of moving, paddled its foot out to the side, leaving a series of curved lines in the dirt in the road… _Perhaps they would be able to find the horse and carriage…_

Her sigh, her eyes back down on the body, led him to consider that she might have found something more useful after all. If so, her discovery would be tenuous, he knew, for her manner suggested a 'grasping at straws' – though such _straws_ had moved them forward on cases before…

"Can you help me turn him?" she asked. Julia removed the sheet covering the body.

 _Strange_ , William felt a pang of worry, of jealousy, somehow, at the sight of the muscular, well-endowed body of the man lying there. Sometimes it was so blatantly obvious that his wife had much more knowledge of male anatomy than he, than any other woman or the average man for that matter, and _it felt odd to find himself wondering if he measured up in confronting seeing Julia so familiar with such an obviously robust specimen._

Their eyes honed in on the man's relaxed, but exceptionally-sized, more private parts.

 _Julia had said that he was fit, but it had been an understatement_ , William realized now. _This man was dangerously gorgeous,_ and every sign erupted within him that he was jealous, his fingers tensing and curling, moving to form fists, his jaw clenching tight, his heart pounded in his chest and there was a raging-bull burst of hot air exploding from deep, deep within him. Rapidly, William worked to backpedal, to pull himself back from his instinctive reaction to the sight of the man's body, hoping Julia would not have noticed the effect the rugged handsomeness of the body had had on him.

Once the body was rolled onto its stomach, _William's eyes were drawn to the man's squared-off and impressive buttocks_ , Julia pointed out a spot on the right thigh. "It appears our victim had broken his leg sometime before he died. I'd say about a month ago. His femur suffered a fracture…" Those big, blue eyes of hers met his again as she added, "The femur is the strongest bone in the body, William. It would require great force to break it…" She saw him ready to ask for details, prompting her to nod her head at him and say, "Somewhere in the realm of 2000 to 3000 lbs."

 _His raised eyebrows fluttered her stomach a bit. Delightful, she still felt butterflies, felt so intrigued by this remarkable man's enthusiasm, his interest, his love for the learning of all things._

Back to her initial report, she stood up taller and went on. "It was professionally set, by someone with medical training. Atrophy suggests he would have been wearing a plaster cast for quite some time…"

William nodded, noting the significantly smaller size of the injured leg.

"… possibly removed only recently…" Julia paused there, noticing William had taken on that familiar expression he gets sometimes, indicating his mind was doing its thing. He would be envisioning something related to the case. She would wait.

Soon, his lovely brown eyes were back, focused on her as he asked for her agreement, "He would have been lying down, facedown, when the injury occurred… Perhaps run over by a car?"

Subtly, a smile wrinkled at the corners of her mouth. "That would have done it," she replied. _Wham, there it was again, that same far-off and intense face of William's, coinciding with her own delightful, effervescent internal response to it…_

Electrical sparks fired in his brain, running down so many different paths at once… _They had made casts of the carriage tracks from the road outside their body farm that he could examine – perhaps the victim was run over by a carriage, not an automobile… but it was unlikely the victim was run-over_ a month before _his murder by the_ same _vehicle used to dump the body,_ and _a carriage would be too light, probably anyway, to cause that degree of damage to the femur…_ And at the same time, another neuron trail was roused _– "that annoying Roger Newsome had been involved with cars…" A corner of William's mouth twitched, "Most likely irrelevant,"_ came his quick judgment… _"And George!"_ an offshoot pathway fired _, "George is quite the expert on cars, being in business with Nina's brother – an auto-repair business. Maybe George would know of a car that had been in such a collision a month ago… No. No…"_ he sighed _, "If the victim had been lying down_ _ **before**_ _the tire went over his leg, there would not have been any damage to the grill of the car, so no damage to the automobile to need repairing._ Another thought zipped off _, "Why would the victim be lying down in the road in the first place? The injury suggested he was already down, maybe unconscious…"_ Then a rather large sigh escaped, _"Either way, the victim broke a leg and it was treated. Maybe the victim reported the incident. He would have gone to a…"_

His wife's voice spoke, pulled at him, "The bone was dealt with by someone with medical training… Maybe hospitals…"

 _Oh, how they both so adored the experience of mutual travel… and then coming to the same climactic culmination._

"Yes," he gloried, acknowledging their shared conclusion, and its optimism, for it was true, there was a possibility that checking the hospitals could lead to identifying the victim. He would send constables out to do just that once he got back to the stationhouse.

 _Wondrous, how with that, the mood switched, and a perfume of romance seemed to dance in the air, catching them, swirling them together in its wake._

Julia's voice dropped down an octave, slow and lusty, she admitted, "I'm sorry I can't offer you more, detective." Ever so imperceptibly, she leaned, held her breath, hinting at a gasp on an obscure breeze.

He stepped close, very close, _too close_ , nonprofessionally close, the tingling action reminding them both that _they were alone_ , despite being in a 'public' place. His eyes settled on one of her tempting curls at the edge of her face, his fingers glancing across the petal-softness of her cheek as he took his claim.

"Oh, there's quite a bit more you can offer me, doctor," he confided, _erupting her womb into a torqueing twist of want._ And the closeness of the scratchy sounds of the hairs of her curl in her ear, being pinched and glided through his fingers, promised their more intimate touch.

 _They both felt it, knew the other felt it as well, the lure of steady eye contact – powerful and unblinking. A clearer message could not be sent._

 _William's mind rushed ahead, anticipating, imagining taking her in his arms, kissing her – rough and wild. She would respond, her breathing becoming fast and fiery. Her sexy, marshmallowy body squishing to him, under him, succumbing to him. Her scent… it was right there…_

 _He shut the fantasy down. Regained his footing_. "Actually, I brought you something," he whispered, letting go of his hold on her to step away, to step back, to turn, to leave to retrieve the roses he had left by the door.

Her face lit up with the sight of his offering. "Two days in row?" she marveled, her gaze drawn to the sweet-smelling dozen golden roses in his hand.

His explanation rocked her, "I want you to know you're loved."

 _Blue, so blue_ , her eyes met his again. He basked in the shower of the lovely feelings.

"But, I do," she told him.

Julia took the glorious gift from him, treasuring it. As she walked away to put them into a vase, she asked, "William…"

 _She would never know how often her husband watched her with lust in his heart, well mostly his groin, when she walked away from him._

"How, ever do you choose the colors? Why today yellow?" she was intrigued by solving the puzzle. Returning, again, their eyes locked. "Our wedding!? Our bond?" she concluded, wondering.

His smile answered her question and she stepped close once more. Julia took his suit jacket lapel in her fingers, remembering that he had worn a yellow rose there, on his tuxedo, while he stood at the end of the aisle that day, waiting for her. _They would soon be married_! _She had seen that he had needed to breathe, and she knew it in her soul then_ , looking at him through the smoky mist of her wedding veil, _that he was enormously happy_. She slipped her fingers under his jacket, to feel the cold, smooth, metal of his badge pinned to his vest.

William took a deep breath, soaking it in. "The yellow rose was like a badge I put on that day, to declare my undying love for you to the world, telling all that I was your husband. It gave me rights and responsibilities… More important than this metal badge, that rose one, my whole life, this remarkable partnership, my family…"

He kissed her, _and she fell_ , mesmerized, breath-taken by the way he sucked her into the overwhelming force of his gravitational field, the electromagnetic vortex flipping her so magnificently…

' _ **Bam,'**_ the piercing sound of the _slam_ startled, the huge morgue door parting them.

Immediately, Rebecca James stopped in her tracks at the sight of them, instantly uncomfortable, blaringly aware of what she had interrupted. But… Miss Rebecca James was not easy to rattle, and she settled her internal alarm quickly. The detective and the doctor, however, squirmed about nervously, eyes drifting down, away, itching and scratching, and avoiding.

" _Truly, these two were such prudes sometimes. They are married after all… Probably the detective_ ," Rebecca noted. She nodded her greeting, "Good afternoon."

Each of the couple managed to respond in kind. And Miss James crossed the aisle-way to the back area to deposit her things.

"I was giving the detective the initial findings of the postmortem on the victim we found yesterday," Dr. Ogden offered.

"That makes sense," Rebecca responded, busying herself with various chemical vials.

Julia noticed, however, as she interacted with Rebecca, that the young woman was not her usual, confident self, but was instead, a bit unsteady. Worried that Rebecca's having had interrupted them during a romantic interlude was the cause, she decided to be direct, _although in Julia's case, sometimes that would end up being just plain old blunt_.

She stepped herself close to her husband and tucked herself under William's arm, feeling him respond to her by placing his hand at the small of her back, instinctively there for her. "Miss James," she stammered, "Uh… Rebecca, William and I are not bothered by your arrival while we were…"

Rebecca felt a sudden heat erupt inside of her – _William too_. The flush caused an actual redness in the detective's face. _Amazing how quickly this man betrayed his feelings, for a man who was so buttoned-up._

Needing to stop the doctor from going any further, Rebecca rushed to blurt out, "It's not that. It was the reporters… the reporters hounding me. One of them even followed me to the University. I saw him asking one of your students, doctor, questions… Doctor... Detective…" she asked for acknowledgement from each of them with her eye contact. Suddenly dizzy, she realized she had not breathed in quite some time, the lack of oxygen had soprano-ed her voice.

Rebecca took a breath, then continued, calmer, her pitch lower, "It's just that I'm afraid… um, that I may have made things worse for you…" She swallowed and pushed herself forward, "He asked if we… share…" Rebecca cleared her throat and held firmly to Julia's eyes, "womanly disclosures… The nerve, to think that, if we did, I would tell," she objected shaking her head, her jaw locking tight.

William had felt his wife's body jerk and tense-up with the news. Every bone in his body pushed him to protect her. He stepped closer to Miss James, lowered his voice to sound more composed than he actually was, and he said, "I don't think it is possible for you to have made our problems with press any worse," thinking his words would both reassure Miss James, and let Julia know that she should not be concerned with the shocking pushiness of the reporter.

It seemed that his intentions had worked, at least with Miss James, for then Rebecca relaxed and started storming on about how furious she had become with the rude man, ranting and steaming, finally concluding harshly, "And then... I broke his pencil in two!"

Julia laughed, "I, for one, am glad you did." Instantaneously, the tension in the room eased. "Now," she changed subjects, "Please phone the lab and check to see if they received our samples from this postmortem…"

Miss James nodded and aimed herself to take up the task.

Julia caught William's eye, "I'd like to properly send-off my husband," she declared.

The couple walked arm-in-arm to the morgue door. They stopped and faced each other. Each of them smiled. Julia asked, "Will you come collect me this evening, detective, to return home?"

His endearing wrinkle at the corner of his mouth showed his disappointment. "Sorry, sorry, I rode the bicycle... this morning…" He sighed, then brightened with an idea, "But I can come escort you to your cab, protect you from press, before I mount up and ride home."

 _She looked so beautiful then_ , tilting her head, _loving him so_. "That would be quite charming of you, detective," she flirted.

"Good," he nodded his common, sweet, albeit short, reply. He took his hat from the ledge and put it on his head. Much like a knight-in-shining-armor, bringing his hand to his brow as he lifted his metal facemask to hold it in place as he bid his farewells to a lady, William reached up and tipped his hat to her. Magnetic, the bond between them. It took effort to break it, to take his leave.

 _Here, it should be told, in fairness, that Julia Ogden, too, enjoyed watching_ _ **HIM**_ _while he walked away, wallowing in the lush feelings stirred in her womb by the lovely view of the lower portion of his suit jacket, dangling and flapping, just up above his taught, firm derriere._

Although, this time, her guilty pleasure did not go unnoticed by Miss Rebecca James.

 _ **Caught**_ , all that Julia Ogden could do was shrug, and smile, and then be swept along with her friend as she tucked the doctor's arm into her own. " _Womanly disclosures, indeed_ ," Rebecca thought.

 _Never before had Miss James known two people to be so much in love. And she admired each of them so. Dr. Ogden, her mentor, her heroine, endeavored with such effort and efficiency to help those who were weaker – street children, oppressed peoples, the poor, women. She had more courage and compassion in her little finger than most people have in their lifetimes. A perfect match for her,_ Rebecca believed, _Detective Murdoch, driven to find truth, intrigued and fueled by curiosity, and the man's ingenuity never ceased to amaze her. And she makes him better. And he makes her better._ Her mind replayed the horrid barrage of questions the reporter had asked of her earlier and she concluded strongly, " _And if these two people want to parent a child, to adopt a child, I feel it is dastardly, and insane, to try to stop them. There could be no better gift than to be raised by these two people, none."_

) (

The mood at dinner was tense that evening. Eloise moved about in the background, sometimes in with them, sometimes out. Fortunately, William Jr.'s antics served, at times, to lighten the mood. But there were serious matters to discuss. First, William shared with his wife, his colleague, _his partner in everything_ , about the frustrating and troublesome dead ends on the case.

Nothing had come from searching for the victim's identity at hospitals, there was not one report of a man with such a broken femur from a month ago. The victim's fingermarks were not anywhere in their records. Further, the man had no face to use to help identify him. There were no distinguishing marks on the body, and the only real clue they had – his unique injury to his femur, had led to nowhere. Experience told that, in a case where the victim could not be identified, solving it was much more difficult, and often the endeavor would end up being unsuccessful.

William reached up and rubbed his brow as he moved on to the next problem. He reached for some piping hot seconds and explained, "As for finding the individual who dumped the body at our place," he shook his head and frowned, "I'm not optimistic. The casts of the carriage wheels, even the fact that the horse paddles… I'd need to have a place to start." Annoyed, and embarrassed at the urge to slam something, he stopped himself there.

He dropped his fork to his plate and asserted, "There's no bullet! No useful trace evidence… Well, the cigarette butt…" he considered, but his rage resurfaced instantly, for it was so little, and it had led nowhere either.

Eloise prepared their desert over at the counter, the detective's stomach being one of the best ways she knew to soothe him. " _The doctor's good at this_ ," she told herself.

"William, take heart in us. Have faith. You know we've solved worse cases," she encouraged him.

His big, brown eyes held to hers a little extra long. He was holding his breath. There was so much more weighing on him, and his look reminded her of it. She breathed in. He did too.

" _Better_ ," she thought.

William returned to eating. After a large exhale, he admitted, "Tomorrow's papers, I'm afraid…"

His frown was back. Julia thought he looked a bit pale. He resumed the hopeless shaking of his head, and that incessant rubbing of his brow. She had to concede, _thinking of tomorrow's papers had a similar effect on her._

"The questions they fired at the Inspector and myself as we left the stationhouse… They'll be reporting that I'm bungling the case," he predicted. Then he wrinkled a corner of his mouth and divulged his fears, "They'll be trying to reignite the calls for public uproar, and demands that we be forced to close the body farm."

Thinking that the couple had reached the low-point, Eloise offered desert. "Coconut Cream Pie," she announced, knowing it was one of the detective's favorite. Joyfully, it appeared his son shared in his tastes, for William Jr.'s happy bouncing and squealing as he tried the treat, and their playful jokes about him wearing more of it than he was eating, helped them all find their smiles once again.

Eventually however, the table was being cleared, and the reality of their troubles returned. Talk turned to the extended harassment of the press to include their friends. Not only had a reporter upset Miss James, but George, too, had been followed and questioned. Besides the, now common, story of reporter affronts about the Murdoch's use of contraception and their motives for wanting to adopt, it seems that George was most distressed by a sense of personal betrayal by a one-time friend – Louise Cherry. According to George, the woman, still reporting for the Gazette, expected him to betray his friendship with the detective, her questions pressing him to disclose his own opinion on whether the detective had actually been duped by Dr. Ogden into believing she was sterile, when in actuality Miss Cherry suspected that Dr. Ogden had been using a contraceptive cup without her husband's knowing it – all so that the doctor would not get pregnant and could keep her precious career. George had had it, and told the woman off in a tirade.

Eloise had been listening. She respected the couple enough not to pretend that she had not been doing so. And, there had been a few moments in their conversation when both William and Julia had glanced her way. Their agreed upon decision to continue talking revealed their trust in the Eloise. In many ways, the enshroudedly doting and loyal housekeeper had come to feel like one of the family to them.

Originally, she had planned to keep the sordid details of the reporter's horrid and shocking actions today, after the man had followed her to the drycleaners, completely to herself. But now Eloise had decided against that. _She told herself that she knew Dr. Ogden well, and she reasoned that the couple could better defend themselves from the press' onslaught if they were armed with the knowledge of how thoroughly wretched and vile the reporters were willing to be_. So, she spoke up, telling them that a reporter from the Daily Star had had the gall to offer her money to say if she had seen evidence of use of prophylactics in their home, and even if the doctor possessed any of those illegal contraceptive contraptions she was infamous for teaching other women about.

"Of course, I adamantly refused to take the money, or to say anything," Eloise insisted, "But… well, I'm sorry to say…" The older woman huffed, "I became so incensed… Well, I told that weasel that I knew this house like the back of my hand, and I had never, never seen such a thing. And then I gave him a piece of my mind… And, well, truth be told I belted him with my purse, I was so mad."

 _William's mind trumpeted relief, for he had already confronted that particular fear last night, when he sat at this very table drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Just another time recently that he had failed in counting sheep._

Still, there was a knowing look between the couple, for surely the question about prophylactics was something that could have gone the other way, and it was more obvious now that they had been much too casual about it back when they had been using them. They reassured Eloise that they appreciated her standing up for them, and they regretted that she had been confronted as she had been.

Julia stood and lifted the baby into her arms, signaling that the meal was through. William joined her, thanking Eloise for a delicious dinner as usual, and pausing to let her know that he particularly valued her taking such good care of him, with her home-cooking and her potent choice of the times to serve his favorites.

He caught up to Julia in the foyer. The family stood together for a moment, considering how to spend the rest of their evening.

"You should workout with your weights, William," Julia suggested, their son still in her arms, her husband lovingly stroking the boy's curly, dark, head of hair. She administered her expert advice, "It will distract your mind from all these upsetting problems, and it will relax you. I'll play with the baby. We'll be right in the next room while you sweat it all out." She gave herself a chuckle, thinking there was a pun in there somewhere. He liked the idea, and he headed up to change his clothes while she and William Jr. went downstairs to the playroom.

Just as William was coming down from the bedroom, the phone rang. He picked it up before Eloise reached it, and they nodded at each other as the detective took the call and the housekeeper readied to leave for the day.

"Father Clemmons," William said into the receiver, sounding surprised. "Yes. I believe I know which one he was – Teddy Nelson… Tonight… at evening mass?"

Eloise had put on her jacket, but now hesitated, fiddling with her hat.

Father Clemmons told William that the reporter had questioned him, about completely inappropriate matters, and that he had also questioned many of the parishioners. And then he added that Mr. Nelson had sought out Mrs. Kitchen specifically.

"Mrs. Kitchen!" William's distress, registering in volume, shot a chill up Eloise's spine.

The priest elaborated, "My goodness, William, she was spitting mad, spent her entire time in the confessional telling me of all the awful, sinful, things she had wanted to do to the man…"

Having regained his self-control, William stood with the phone to his ear, his lips pinched tight trying to accept the horribleness of what he was learning. "I'll have to give her a call," he said calmly.

Father Clemmons' voice was reassuring as he ended the call, saying, "I thought you should know."

"Thank you, Father. Yes. Yes. I appreciate your taking the time, and… everything else. Goodnight… I will. Thanks again," William said, hanging up the phone.

Eloise approached the front door to leave, but stopped and turned back to face him. His expression was warm as their eyes met. It pulled at her heart strings, and she yielded to her urge to touch him, at least with some kind words. "You know," she started, "I see you want to protect your friends from these terrible confrontations from the press, and… certainly, I understand the need to guard yourself, and even more so the doctor, from embarrassment, but consider looking at all this mess from another perspective. Take heart from your friends' loyalty, feel the comfort of their love for you, it can offer you much. Recognize the support they give you when they are driven so to defend you."

The detective's smile was sincere, genuine, and she knew her words had heartened him. He thanked her for her wisdom, and her care, and he stood at the door, watching, waiting, for her to make it to the sidewalk and then make her turn towards her home. Gratefully, their front gate was free of reporters, at least for now, it seemed they all had been left alone.

) (

With the yummy, warm glow of the whisky in her belly, Julia stepped into their standing bath to take her shower. Her mind bounced about from thought to thought. _The alcohol would help her sleep… It was too bad William had already showered…_ Her mind splurged with a vivid and arousing flash of memory, mixed with a delightful dose of fantasy, her body responding with a delectable, lust-filled, wrenching of her insides as she imagined her lathered up husband pushing her backside into the cold, hard shower tiles on the wall, and having his way with her. Ever so quietly, her throat released a tiny whimper with the unbearable pleasure of it.

 _Now, Julia Ogden was an extraordinarily lucky woman, for it turns out that her ruggedly handsome husband, after he had looked in on their sleeping toddler and secured the house for the night, had been having exactly the same experience as he returned to their bedroom and heard the shower running._

There were sounds – the metal rings jangling along the metal shower pole as the shower curtain slid opened… their breathing changing, building, becoming blustery, and hot, and strong… the teeming pattering of the cascading stream of water – but no words were spoken. They were deluged with caresses of sudsy-smooth, slippery, skin, and luscious tastes of their lover's lips, so steamy, and humid. Julia wanting to rush, William forcing her to slow down, teasing her to the very edge, the highest precipice, of her agonous longings to have his dizzying, magnificent, hardness, closer to her. Her desperation for him had been driven to such enormous peaks that tears had formed in her eyes by the time William yielded to his own teetering desires, and he took her. Primal urges, fierce needs, so humungous the explosion. William refused to allow her an inch, pinned her with all his might to the wall, sunk his teeth wildly into the tender flesh of her neck, with such a fury, with such fire, he forced her to succumb to him, that she was certain she would die from the sheer ecstasy of it.

)

Later that night, William had a nightmare, likely triggered by a seemingly boundless barrage of unnerving thoughts that played in his mind while, largely, failing to fall asleep, disturbing thoughts of all the dangers they were facing. He had laid there in the darkness, Julia long since sleeping next to him, and train after train had rolled by, sometimes him getting on for a while, other times him just letting the steaming, chugging, train of thought go by. _He and Julia had both broken the law in the past, her by having an abortion, him by setting Constance Gardner free. Those big ones lingered off in the distance, their threat very real, but he knew that, for now, they were hidden in the dark. Right now, the light shined on their use of prophylactics – illegal, but not as devastating, and he had managed to get off of that train of thought. But it rumbled up in again, and images of people, particular people, some of them friends, others merely acquaintances, drifted in, and solidified, and faded out. There were people who knew their secrets, there could be such grave consequences… He saw them flash and flicker in the darkness – the maid at the Windsor House Hotel holding up two used condoms that she had pulled out of their bedroom wastebasket… Dr. Tash walking alongside of him in the woods, telling that, "Julia had been such a pistol back at Bishop College…" Chief Inspector Giles glaring with awareness as he wisely said it, "Loyalty is the only moral instinct that can exist on the same plane as truth itself. They may clash, but one can never overcome the other without cost…_ "

 **He sat at one end of a chessboard. Inspector Giles appeared to be his opponent. They were in prison! Had he been caught! Where was Julia?!**

 **Suddenly, he was down** _ **on**_ **the board, dressed as the Mad Hatter, wearing that ridiculous polka-dot, huge, bowtie. He was ON a life-sized chessboard. Gigantic, one of the pieces… he was certain it was his opponent, but his opponent was no longer Giles, instead he now faced a shadowy grim-reaper figure whom he could not wholly make out, only that the fiend was smoky, blackened, sinister, powerful and elusive. Stealing his breath, making him jump, abruptly, the monstrous chess piece, the rook, was lifted high above him in the air as it took its move, landed with a BOOM that shook the whole world. He couldn't think, his heart raced, he was full of terror… There were treacherous sounds of voices, questions, badgering, ridiculing, attacking, threatening him, threatening Julia – HIS QUEEN. He saw her there, so, so beautiful, big, like all the other chess pieces, but unsuspecting…**

 **Giles' voice whispered in his ear, "If you protect your Queen, you'll die."**

 **Boldly, he shouted his reply, "Worse, to live without her!" and he dove full-hearted into battle to fight for her, to keep the monstrous foes away from her, slaying, and striking, and punching, spinning, and kicking, he urgently blocked any motion that appeared in front of them. But he saw it, denied it was there, but still he saw it, hopelessness lurked at the edges of the playing field. There were too many of them, too many of them, and they came from all sides. He couldn't protect her from all sides! With each move, he was losing more ground, and he knew he couldn't possibly keep it up, and he knew in his heart, that eventually, he would fail.**

 **Without so much as a blip, he was in their foyer… But he was retreating, rushing away… from something, from someone. Julia caught up to him from behind, grabbed his arm, stopped him. "William," she demanded, "You need to relax, take a deep breath, stop rushing wildly from one thing to another."**

 **He turned on her, his teeth gritted in anger. "You are so bossy!" he sniped. Immediately it flooded, pain, and fear of losing her, terror with the awareness, the risk, of him being the one to hurt her, the urgency trumpeted through him with an electrical jolt. He could never say it fast enough, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"**

 **Her eyes, blue, beautiful, caught him, slowed him, slowed everything. So very softly she answered, "I can be… bossy."**

 **And he felt her words like the wind, yet they were surrounded only by silence, by nauseating stillness. There was a hint at shame, shame being overrun by her love of being truthful, truthful with him. She never ceased to amaze him, Julia was astounding, rare, so honest, so strong.**

 **He held vehemently to her. Her eyes, so caring. He felt her love for him seeping in, warming, soothing.**

" **I'm worried about you," she said, touching him so tenderly, cupping his cheek.**

 **Maybe it was that he felt the unbearable surge of shame for having had lost his control with her, for snapping at her… More likely it was the sheer panic of the situation, but for some reason, tears filled his eyes. And it was so odd, for he could see himself, his tears glistening so beautifully as the slippery liquid caught the light, remarkable the way they melted Julia's heart with love for him, filling the air, filling him, so that it seemed to glow, and to ache, and to float.**

 **He rushed to try to explain, "You don't see, Julia, disaster is going to happen, and I have to stop it, but I don't think I can. Each move they make, I'm losing ground, I'm bound to fail." He stared at her, pleading that she saw the dangers. An enormous teardrop trickled down his cheek, so large, so heavy… He quickly swiped at it, wishing it were not there, that she did not see...**

 **Gentle, her thumb glided, taking the stream of tears away. "Come outside with me, breath some fresh air for a minute," she seemed to wrap herself around him. They stepped onto the porch, fresh, and light, and perfect, their world. "You're not alone, William, that's why it will be alright. Together we will stop it. You, and me… and William, there are so many others who love us, who will help us to, so much more than you know…"** ****

 **Without warning, another prisoner appeared on the chessboard before him. It was Dr. Tash! He'd been sentenced to death for performing abortions, landing with an earthquaking BOOM from above… William grabbed his queen's hand, jerked her to follow him. But she struggled against him. It was Julia's voice that called it out from behind him, "No William, I want this fight…"**

"You want it?" he felt himself asking incredulously as he awoke. So quickly, he knew where he was. His body told him he was unsettled, terrified, confused, battered… " _Just a dream_ ," he promised himself, " _Julia's right there. The baby's fine. It wasn't real. It will be alright_ …"

William exhaled, accepting his fate. _Yes, once again, he was having trouble sleeping, he was stuck counting sheep. There was no sense in fighting it,_ so he got up. His nakedness reminded him of their lovemaking in the shower, and so lusciously, he felt better. He put on his pajama bottoms and headed downstairs. _Hot chocolate again_ , it seemed.

)

He heard her behind him as he stirred the pot of melting chocolate and milk on the stove, and he noted his own reaction, one of pure joy. She would share 'the middle of the night, trouble sleeping custom' with him. He waited for her to wrap her arms around him from behind, and he tilted his head to give her access to his neck. She was grateful for it, and trickled it with kisses, and paused to take in the scent of him, before either of them would speak.

It had hit him like a thunderbolt when he first noticed it, her arms sliding over the naked skin of his sides, up his chest, her body pressed against his bare back, so _familiar_ the feeling of the fabric of _his own pajama top._ There was something so _sexy_ about knowing she was in it, that she had chosen to put _his_ pajama top on, rather than her nightgown or her robe. His top was too big for her, of course, _and deliciously short_! If she moved in the right way, he could catch a glimpse of the two orbs of her scrumptious behind sticking out from underneath it. William did not even pretend he wasn't worked-up by the sight, expressing aloud the effect it had on him with a vigorous shaking of his head and a grumbly moaning of "Mmm-mmm-mm."

Although both cups of steaming hot chocolate managed to make it to the table, neither of their drinkers made it to their chairs. He would have to do something about his lust before they sat and talked. Julia's insides, too, were aroused beyond tolerable. They made love against the kitchen wall. _Delicious, absolutely delicious._

Afterwards, important things were resolved that night, at the kitchen table, each of them holding a warm ceramic cup of hot chocolate as they talked it through. Times were hard for them right now, of that there was no doubt, but they lived their lives in a way that opened them up to such risks, and they had boldly chosen to stick to their principles in doing so. They had no regrets. They shared how grateful they were for their friends, and they also trusted that those same friends could handle themselves well.

As for adopting, full-speed-ahead was the plan. They had one more appointment, at Baker House here in Toronto, tomorrow afternoon, and after that, they would change tactics and try applying to Catholic orphanages. The strikes being held against them for Julia's, and William argued, _his_ too, modern ways were expected to present problems with these more religiously-centered organizations as well, but they were already suffering from such opinions stopping their efforts at adopting a child as it was, so they agreed, they had nothing to lose in trying Catholic opinions. Perhaps William's devoutness, and some good words from Father Clemmons and other Catholic parishioners, would help counterbalance their perceived insufficiencies.

William noted that he had plans to meet their handyman, Jake Castern, at the Body Farm tomorrow morning. They would be installing an alarm system. William fought the urge to frown as he said, "Perhaps that will stop any more bodies from being dumped there… Or at least enable us to catch any culprits right away. Maybe that will help satisfy the press." But, he already knew that it would not.

He spotted it when he looked at her to give her his 'admitting it' mouth wrinkle, his mark from biting her so roughly earlier when they had made love in the shower. The lovebite had raspberried into a swollen, purplish, bruise on her flesh. She noticed his eyes react, reached up to touch the spot. For a moment, she wondered if he would ever be able to see such evidence of his wilder, sexual, side without feeling regret.

She reached over to him, from where she sat, around the corner from him at their kitchen table, and tucked her fingers under his chin to lift his face to meet hers. He swallowed. She smiled, gave him a little giggle. Reassuringly she vowed, "It was lovely William."

He clamped his lips together and nodded. If he really let himself remember it, it was obvious that she had quite liked it.

 _Wham, it hit!_ William tilted his head to the side, and flew along his fast mind's track.

Julia knew that look. Truth be told, she found it invigorating when this happened – something had stirred an important connection in his amazing mind. " _Probably a clue in the case,"_ she explained the change to herself. She would have to wait for him to come back to tell her what he had discovered.

It had been her bruise, sparking a memory of a similar one in the past. He had figured out, back then, that if he photographed it with only ultraviolet light, they would be able to detect old bruising. They had even done an experiment at the time, taking pictures of his lovebite on her neck every day for a month.

"Julia," his eyes sparkled so with his excitement, "we can see the automobile's tire track on the victim's thigh!" he exclaimed.

Her eyebrows raised at him. "That _would_ be good!" she encouraged. "But how?" she insisted.

"We can photograph the area around the break in the femur with a UV filter!" he beamed, "Remember?" he urged, "We did it with your bruise… after I discovered I could see an old bruise on my knuckles when I took a UV photo of myself holding a gun, hoping to be able to see the luminescence of blood on the weapon!"

 _Oh, his excitement was so contagious, Julia felt the strain of her smile in her cheeks._

"Yes! Of course I remember," she gleamed.

The discovery would count as a victory. There was much to do now, when they woke tomorrow. Taking a useful photograph using this technique was rather complicated. He would need her help, and it would take a good amount of time. It would have to be after he got back from putting in the alarm system at the Body Farm… and before they left to make their appointment at Baker House. With that, the couple went back upstairs, and soon all the Murdoch's were asleep.

The next morning, Eloise would find _**TWO**_ cups resting in the sink. She wouldn't know exactly what they had worked out, not being privy to their agreeing that there was nothing more noble than fighting for what you believe in, and their acknowledgement that such battles usually required the utmost courage, and their gratitude that courage was something that they each had in ample amounts. Yes, there would be more nights when they would still be counting sheep. But Eloise, for one, was reassured to know that they would be counting them… together.

)) ((


	5. 5 Choc Moose: Cures for Tormented ElkT

Chapter 5: Chocolate ' _Moose_ ' & Other Cures for Those of the Tormented _'Elk'_

Both of them sat, stiffer, more rigid, more distanced, than usual, in the cab returning home after meeting with four members of the Baker House Adoption Committee. There was a heavy silence, it seemed they each sat taller fighting it. They had been rejected again, as expected, but their thoughts were both being haunted by the same, short, exchange _**between them**_ during the meeting. It had been tense. It would linger.

William sighed from his side of the cab – she noticed. He did not notice that she noticed, as his mind replayed the scene, for the umpteenth time. Julia's voice, like it can be sometimes, sagely, poignantly at ease in a challenging situation, with him admiring her from his seat next to hers in the formal surroundings of the Baker House lounge, her voice resounded in his brain, clearly, presenting their case to the stuffy members of the committee, " _We are fortunate that we can do both, I can be both, a pathologist and a mother, because of our station, our wealth, we can afford a live-in nanny, and a housekeeper. William Jr. has a rich and wonderful life, although both William and I agree, it would be improved by his having a younger sibling… And… I… we… have not been able to, um…well because of my condition we can't… Of course, that's why we are here. Our nanny is a young and warm woman. Our son loves her. Nannies have been helping parents to raise their children for ages – likely some of you were even rais..."_

There was a twitch, still now, as he reacted with alarm, and was zinged by the memory of it, his own voice in his head, startling him, for at that point, he had interrupted her. He had rushed, leaned forward into the conversation drawing everyone's eyes, and had said, " _I think what my wife is trying to say is that we are able to give our children the best of both worlds, they have, in Julia, a nurturing, encouraging and cherishing mother who is vibrant and fun and creative, and a mother who can model for them a female who is competent in the professional realm..."_

Instantly his warning had come – Julia had huffed. Then her words cut, snipping, _"If I'm so competent, William, then I suppose I can explain my own arguments."_ Her lips had pinched tight, the thin, cold, smile chilling him to the bone.

Now, in the cab, _he could tell… she was furious_ , and even more disturbing, _she was furious_ _ **with him**_ _._

Just then, her words pierced, sucking them together, suddenly, her eyes burning fiercely into his, fire spewing, stealing away his oxygen. "How dare you apologize for me, William, treat me like I am some sort of hysterical, irrational woman in danger of embarrassing herself with her crazy ideas and rants. You just had to act like _the big man_ , just had to step in and save your poor, unruly wife from herself…"

Clear images flashed before him, _he saw himself spreading out the sheet on the couch in their living room. He would be sleeping on the couch tonight._ He told himself _not to swallow_ , feeling the lump choking in his throat, _it would show his fear…_

William tried to catch her words, to find something to latch onto that might offer help. Julia only picked up steam, picked up the pace, "What happened to that winsome man who knew, even more so than I did myself, that _**I did not need saving**_ … William, because I was, I am, completely capable of fighting for myself…" She paused considering her own question. "Is it because we are married now, and we weren't back then? Did I have to lose that winsome man, once I became his _property_?" She held to his eyes. Fire – pure, scorching, fire.

He felt unnervingly exposed, like she could see right through, to the very center of him, like she could see how helpless he felt. The only thing that came to his mind to respond with was defensive, "Julia…" followed by an exasperated and insulted frown, "You very well know that I don't think of you as _my property_." _Yes, it was definitely going to be the couch for him, tonight. He could see no way out._

She looked away, took a deep breath. _He had a point_. She considered the whole ordeal from his perspective, thinking, " _Maybe he was acting more on his own accord. William can be quite awkward… especially in social situations. Maybe I was pushing him too much, taking us too far out of his comfort zone, with my modern ideals? Perhaps he felt the committee was thinking badly of_ **him** _, for letting_ _ **his**_ _wife behave so badly? Perhaps he felt embarrassed… Oh my God, I see it now!"_

She nearly whispered her discovery, seemingly speaking, as much to the air, as to him, "That's the truth of it, isn't it? Since I am your wife, whatever I do… it reflects on _**you**_. You were ashamed of me." Suddenly, her emotions overcame her and she didn't breathe as she needed to in the rush and her face reddened and her voice rose into a squeak and she almost watched herself realizing it, she saw herself feeling the pain of understanding it, hearing her own degree of upset only upsetting her more. Exponentially, the dominoes fell. "You're ashamed of me. I see it now!" she burst into tears, crumpling away from him, folding into a more fetal position, only the window of the cab supporting her, and she cried.

) (

Home, Julia refusing his hand as she dismounted from the cab, both of them were stuck in their heads. Once in the door, the couple dealt with what came their way – a happy toddler, the smells of Eloise's dinner cooking. Noticeably, Julia quickly excused herself and went upstairs to change. William remained downstairs, took William Jr. out into the backyard for a while. He suspected, correctly, that Julia was crying again. The thoughts that gurgled inside of him came with such inner turmoil. As he played with his son, took him exploring in the woods, William was living in his head. Upstairs, Julia too was suffering. They both were living, again, in their heads, encountering their own demons with shame.

 _Julia's battle was raging on multiple fronts, with not being able to give William the family he deserved – with not being 'woman enough' to give William the family he wanted, and, even worse, having the shameful, shameful, reason for her not being able to do so tarring her even more. And, to make matters worse, and ultimately sitting at the crux of the situation today, the whole ordeal at Baker House had stirred up her childhood battles and dramas as well, particularly those old ones with her father's persistent persecution of her for her boyish behaviors._

 _Constantly her father had told her when she was a child how ashamed of her he was, ashamed for her not being like other girls. Julia had routinely been held after their family meals at their long, cold and imposing dinner table to receive her scoldings from him. Sometimes she was even mocked by her father in front of other children. And, always, it seemed, Julia remembered feeling humiliated during meetings with her father and her teachers. Some of her parents' worst arguments had been fought about her unconventional behavior, her father red-faced and aggressive, yelling, throwing things, because her mother "encouraged the girl's wrongheadedness" by letting Julia run around without wearing a corset, and climb trees, and ride horses, "like a man," instead of sidesaddle, as she should… and she was so TALL. Her father had absolutely despised the fact that she was a tomboy, that she was smarter than all the boys… Her mind found some reprieve whenever it would arrive at this last thought, however, for it was a mixed issue with her father, for Julia's outstanding intelligence and well-spoken arguments had brought him pride at times, as well. And now, with all these mean-spirited stories in the papers, and the gossipy whispers from just outside of earshot in the shadows, along with a childhood of being shamed for not behaving appropriately feminine, Julia had ended up overwhelmed and taking on, accepting, wearing, the disgust others felt for her, and now, in feeling that William saw her as her father had seen her… it had been the final straw._

 _As for the troubles inhabiting William's head, plaguing him, that was trickier. William Murdoch's psyche was…_ _ **different**_ _… when it came to Julia Ogden, and as a result, there was one thing that remained wholly unconscious to him. It hovered, below his surface of awareness, generally undetected. The closest he ever came to being able to see it was when he was in Church, when he prayed, when he sat, quiet, in Mass, and his soul's waters settled with the stillness, the calm, and then, if he would ever have let himself truly look, if he would allow himself to reflect on what was there, in him, he would have seen it – his shame for having come to feel the way he did about her, to love Julia Ogden with every tiny morsel of his being, despite his knowing she had chosen, and further, did not even regret, aborting a child. That hidden shame churned, drove him, sometimes, to do things, and he would never come to know that it had influenced his choices in such matters._

 _In the meeting today, when Julia had stuttered, had faltered in her otherwise powerful explanation for their decisions to adopt a child, and that faltering had brought them_ _ **dangerously close**_ _to revealing_ _ **this**_ _truth, this illegal and shun-spurring truth, that_ _ **she had had an abortion**_ _… that having this abortion had left her with the "_ _ **condition**_ _" that she had spoken of today to the committee, that her abortion was what had rendered it so_ _ **dire**_ _that she not become pregnant now, and thus was the reason they had broken the law in the past and used prophylactics, he had encountered this shame. It was part of the panic that had moved him to interrupt her in the first place. And even worse, on some deeper level Julia had picked up on it, her sensing of it fueling her own belief that William_ _ **was**_ _ashamed of her in the same way her father had been when she was a child._

 _Consciously, there were other explanations for why he had acted this way today, for interrupting her… reasonable causes for him to have_ _ **felt**_ _the way he did in response to what she was saying to the committee. He remembered, and he got stuck thinking about, the fact that, before Julia had brought up her 'condition' in the meeting, she had drawn everyone's attention to their "wealth," their high "station." William's having had married into this toff-life had always been problematic for him. It made sense to him that her saying it so matter-of-factly today would have caused him shame… unleashed panic. However, their being part of the upper class was a more_ _ **acceptable**_ _reason for him to feel such discomfort than was his shame of Julia for having had made the decision to abort a child in her past, thus now, her mentioning their wealth with the adoption committee entertained much of his internal thinking about their current discord._

) (

William carried a tray of supper up the steps. He tried to feel hopeful, noting to himself that his placing of one of the red-orange roses he had bought for her the other day on the tray made it look cheerful. _Maybe he was wrong, maybe Julia wasn't missing supper because she was upset, but rather because she had simply lost track of the time. Maybe she was lounging, and caring for herself, and soothing herself after their disappointment at the orphanage today by taking a hot bath._

The bedroom door was closed. He stopped… listened. His sigh was the only thing he heard. Balancing the tray with great focus, William coached himself that _a clumsy move like dropping the tray would not help matters_ , and he opened the door. Julia sat at her vanity, still dressed in the same clothes she had worn to work this morning. Her eyes were terribly red and puffy with tears. He spotted a novel opened in front of her. _Likely she had been trying to distract herself from her crying with reading it._

Julia's eyes stayed on the tray. "I'm not hungry, William," she said, her tone short, annoyed with him, bothered.

"You're being stubborn," he charged, attempting to, almost managing to, keep his voice nonchalant.

Julia huffed her irritation. _My God, now he insisted on belittling her too, just like her father…_

William failed to hide his frown. "Julia…" an air of desperation emerged, "I'm not ashamed of you," he said plainly, deciding to be direct.

Now it was Julia who frowned. There was a quick glance, the mere sight of him standing there stirring-up anger in her. She pushed the irritation down with a huff. "I'm too nauseous… I feel too sick to eat," she said. _Oh, and she knew this would get a rise out of him…_ "I would take some whiskey though," she added.

William frowned, sighed. His fingers twitched under the tray, itching to rub his brow.

She steamed, "Christ, that embarrasses you too!"

"Julia, please…" William paused for a breath, trying to calm himself down, "Please don't use the Lord's name in such a way."

And with that, Julia shoved herself away from the vanity, jutted her magnificent chin out into the air and stormed out announcing, "Never mind, I'll get the whiskey myself."

He stood watching her, following her flapping arms from behind as they pumped her along, stunned, he continued to stare. Soon, Julia out of sight, transfixed by her wake, he felt it ripple through him as his ears began to hum.

)

Downstairs, Julia instantly regretted her decision to go into the dining room, where their liquor cabinet was located, by going through the kitchen rather than using the side door. _Truthfully, the mistake was probably because her head was screaming at her so, she was so… destroyed, that she hung, with her last thread, to the image of the relief she would soon feel, anticipating the biting tingle of the thick scent of the whiskey as she would lift the crystal top from the fancy decanter… She desperately needed the warm liquid to burn away the pain_ … But the moment she stepped over the kitchen threshold, Eloise turned her head and caught Julia's eye.

Julia halted right there, and turned to watch her little toddler son, sitting in his highchair at the table, follow Eloise's glance. The boy's big, William-like eyes widened at the sight of her, _so lovely their twinkle_ , and he bubbled over with glee. The child slapped the platform of his highchair, splattering himself with his goopy dinner in process. Her heart responded as his squeals and bounces with delight filled the air.

"Mommy," the child reached his arms for her.

Julia's heart didn't stand a chance, it melted like milk chocolate in the hot sun. She walked over, took William Jr. into her lap, and showered him with sweet, adoring, cheery talk, as she cleaned the mess from his face and his arms and made an effort at wiping off his shirt. She felt it, as she so often did _, that she_ _ **was**_ _a good mother for this child. It felt so warm, so natural, so right_. She started to ask Eloise if she saw it too, but then changed her mind. _She wanted reassurance, but…_

The housekeeper had spotted, instantly, that the doctor had been crying, the evidence guaranteeing that the younger woman's missing of dinner had not been due to physical ailments, but instead, as Eloise had suspected while observing the detective's unease earlier, indicated that it was because of the doctor's emotional distress. The detective had seemed much more upset than usual, himself. In Eloise's experience, nothing bothered that man more than when things weren't right with his wife. Eloise had been aware that the couple had had another orphanage appointment this afternoon. _They must have been rejected again_. And if that were the case, _Dr. Ogden had likely been the orphanage's reason_ for stopping the Murdoch's from adopting any of the infant children that were available and needed homes. It would be weighing on the woman, that was for sure.

From behind her, Julia heard Eloise fidgeting with getting her some food to eat. Every bone in her body wanted to protest, but she already knew that she would not be that ungrateful.

Seemingly focused on preparing Julia's plate, Eloise spoke up, "If you need some sincere, honest, good words about your mothering doctor, I'll have you know that I can think of no other child than that one sitting right there in your lap who has a better childhood, albeit without any brothers or sisters, which you and the detective are certainly trying to remedy." She paused to remove some butter from the detective's refrigeration icebox invention, quickly going on, "To the point where I sometimes find myself wishing I had had a childhood like his. I wish I had had parents like you and like your husband. I watch how you are with him, so fun, you care so intensely… protective, but you let him grow too, not to mention the fine fathering he gets from his other parent, and I tell you, I regret not being able to be like you are with your child with my children when they were growing up. And I can see why your confidence would be shaken, with all these awful things they write about you in the papers…"

Julia added, sad, tears threatening to swell-up, hot, behind her eyes with the words, with the thoughts that were evoked, "And what they say in their sly, little hushed undertones when I walk by."

Seeing such a strong woman, a beautiful, life-affirming champion for all, so hurt and unsteady… it ripped at Eloise. Her tone became motherly, "Doctor, people stuck in their ignorance will have a false confidence, really I think it's actually unrecognized arrogance in people of this _**ilk**_ … but it can be powerful. And if you judge yourself by their standards, their restrictive rules, which really only function to make it easier, quicker, for them to categorize and to label other people… And I must say, they don't know what to do with someone like you… with someone like you, and like the detective. And… well…" Eloise shook her head disappointedly, and then changed the subject in her mind, and lifted her finished plate, _her masterpiece looked quite appetizing indeed._ And with that observation, another approach presented itself in the older woman's mind. "The best artwork, the most breathtaking, beautiful, pieces I've ever seen, often happened, were created when, the artist went outside of the lines. You and the detective have always reminded me of the artist _**ilk**_. You go outside of the lines. I love that you go outside of the lines. You show us all that so much is possible," she offered. Then Eloise started her insightful conclusion, "Doctor, you are so full of spunk, pizz…"

Abruptly, their attention was pulled towards the kitchen entrance by the clattering of dishes… William would be there any second, bringing the tray of supper he had brought upstairs for her back down.

Bright and attuned, William Jr., too, had heard the clanking sounds from outside of the room when he followed the two adults' sudden change of interest. Although the women quickly hurried back to their talk, the little one continued to wiggle and squirm, and to lean and to peer around his mother, anticipating the seeing of his father.

 _Neither woman noticed, but if Julia had, she would have remarked on the significance of what their son was doing, for it would have provided solid evidence that their parenting was effective. William Jr.'s brain had reached a milestone, and it had reached a bit early for his age, he was displaying a grasping of Piaget's concept of object permanence… out of sight, but still exists. The little child knew his Daddy was there._

Because Julia felt lifted by Eloise's words, she wanted to share her gratitude… before William arrived. "Thank you, Eloise," she nodded, grabbing the very first second that their eyes met again, holding her, now dried, pale blue eyes to those of her longtime housekeeper and friend, affirming her sincerity. _There were times she felt she and William were surrounded by sages, what with George tending to tangent off on his philosophizing, and the Inspector's fatherly advice, and sometimes, like just now, Eloise could be so Fairy-Godmotherly…_

It was Eloise's sudden shift that made the resulting silence, the obvious and blatant hasty ceasing of whatever had been happening before the detective had arrived, so uncomfortable. When it came to her employers, Eloise accepted that the unconventional nature of the doctor, and the lower-class upbringing of the detective, meant that neither of them was very good at keeping the distinctions between employer and employee that were expected by the rest of the world. The housekeeper had overstepped, she would be the one to feel awkward about it. Thus, it was Eloise who stepped back, nervously fidgeted with her apron, her marker of her place, it was Eloise who averted her eyes.

 _William hunted for safe ground_. His plate still sat at his place on the table, half eaten, most assuredly cold. Julia had the baby in her lap, and she had a plate of food in front of her. His instincts connected him to the baby, _common ground_. It was easy, really, for William Jr. was really the only one in the room to look directly at him anyway, and the baby's smiled upon seeing him… it made life worth living.

His voice animated, as was his way with their little son, William said, "Well, hello again little man. I see you have helped your mother's appetite." He laid the tray down on the countertop, Eloise hurrying over to empty it. "Thank you, Eloise," he told her with a smile. William returned to the table, placed the napkin in his lap. He would finish. _Oh, how he tried to think of something to say…_

Julia had decided to be a good sport. Her spirits were higher, and she was able to bring herself to nibble. She remained occupied with the baby, never even glanced to her husband.

Eloise found her mind returning to her words to the doctor, her reflection bringing her to see that her own words could also be applied to herself. She had crossed a line, one most a housekeeper, or other people of her _**ilk**_ , would not even have considered crossing with the woman of the house, yet, she believed that there could come some good in crossing the line sometimes.

Oddly for her, Eloise sighed. Not so surprisingly, knowing the man, the detective noticed. It made him even more aware of how _not right_ things were between himself and Julia. Coming to the conclusion that there was nothing he could do about it right now, he did what he always did when under pressure, focused on the case at hand. _The papers had been brutal about his lack of success_ in finding, not only the killer of the man found shot in the back of his head on their body farm, but the victim's identity as well. William sighed, unaware it was audible to the others. _The reporters' barrage of questions this afternoon as he left the stationhouse early to collect Julia and head over to Baker House did not bode well for tomorrow's news stories either._

Dr. Ogden was wholly absorbed by the baby, experimenting with feeding him bits of her supper to try. " _At least the play is getting her to eat some, too,"_ Eloise thought to herself. She read the body language… " _They must have argued,_ " she reasoned, nothing sucked up their life force more than when they were not in accord with each other.

Julia pulled back to better see William Jr. wrinkle his face with disgust. "Yucky?" she questioned. Not yet trained in the better graces of table etiquette, William Jr. pushed the unwanted food – a mushed up piece of broccoli in this case – forward out of his mouth with his tongue to be caught by his mother. "It's not so bad," she teased him with a giggle.

" _Oh, I almost forgot!"_ Eloise yelled to herself in her head. She had anticipated a rough night for the doctor, and of course the detective, too. But, because she read the papers with more focus on the Murdoch's than even the Murdoch's themselves did, and she had seen the writing on the wall, she had prepared for comforting their wounds tonight. And Eloise knew that Dr. Ogden would be the one most in need of care. Eloise had a superpower, and it was time to deploy it. Eloise had made the doctor's very favorite dessert – _**CHOCOLATE MOUSSE!**_

Not overplaying it, Eloise casually placed the delicacy down in front of both of them at the same time. All she said was, "Some dessert?"

 _My goodness, how Dr. Ogden lit up_.

"Eloise!" Julia declared, "You're a miracle worker! This is perfect, just perfect!" and her spoon was already dipped into the chocolaty, creamy dessert and swooped into her mouth, to let the sweetness soak down in, and spread joy, sweet, sweet joy, through her aching spirit. "Mmmm," she shared her delight enthusiastically. " _I swear, this is_ _better than whiskey,"_ she noted to herself.

She looked down into her lap… those gorgeous brown eyes so intrigued. "Would you like some little one?" she offered, already preparing the boy a spoonful. Her smile was humungous. "Oh," she nodded at him, her eyes sparkling, "Now that's yummy."

"Julia." William objected, "Do you think you should get him accustomed to such things?"

"Oh William, he will have plenty of life's misery, lets expose him to some pleasures as well," Julia explained, quickly adding another spoonful of the smooth chocolaty goodness to her own mouth and covering and deluging her tongue with more of the yummy treasure.

William gave her a consenting nod. His chest expanded visibly, a bit of relief initiating the deeper breath. He had been holding his breath. He hadn't noticed. He tried… tried to connect with Julia from across the divide, feeling somewhat heartened by the ease with which she had just replied to him. Feeling it was a safe topic, he decided to make a comment about the case.

William's glance, quick, from the side, caught her eye. _She had always found that particular…_ _ **that**_ _ **little 'peek'**_ _he would take in her direction sometimes, to be so endearing. Back before they had begun courting all those years ago, she thought it revealed his caution, his shyness, but underneath it, she had always sensed his fire, all of it focused on HER. Such a look had always left her knowing how very, very important she was to him. Even now, even though the gesture suggested his uncertainty, his discomfort with their being in the midst of an argument, she found herself caught by it._

"I should have known that the bruise on the victim's thigh was not caused by an automobile tire," he wrinkled his face admitting to his self-doubt. "I was so hopeful that the UV photographs were going to give us a lead…"

 _William's mind showed him, for probably the two-hundredth time today, the best photograph they had ended up with_ after hours of painstakingly setting and firing intricately timed and synchronized flashbulbs, and measuring distances to the body from the camera with a tape measure, and getting the angles just right, and holding everything so very, very still with each click.

The UV photography had worked, _he tried to take heart in that, at least_. The technique had made the month-old bruise visible, even clear. It was sharp and distinct from the rest of the flesh. But he had concluded that the mark was unidentifiable after examining it. ( _Of course, William Murdoch's brain would never stop trying to figure out what had made such a bruise_ ). The puzzle had a hold on him, even if he wouldn't admit it. _So odd, the shape – almost like an obese, giant hand_. There was a larger, round area, surrounded at the top by four symmetrically placed smaller semicircles. In order for the object to have landed on the victim's leg with the necessary force… Julia had told him it was 2000-3000 lbs., it would have had to have been something industrial. _Maybe something from a factory_ … His mind had turned all of this over and over all day. But now… now, he was dealing with what felt like his _stupidity_ in expecting the bruise to have been from an automobile.

Tugged by his disappointment, Julia offered _, almost reaching out and covering his hand on the table to reassure him, but overruling the instinct_ , "William, you always say that _any_ evidence is a clue, and the UV photographs of the bruise do tell us much about whatever it was that struck the victim and broke his femur a month before he died. Maybe we don't see it right now, but we will."

Her kindness touched him, and they locked eyes, and his big brown ones were suddenly so vaccumuous that she felt herself being sucked in. In her head there were the warnings, the reminders, " _You're upset with him… Look away…"_ and she pushed herself to lean away, increase the distance, resist, resist.

With a jerk, Julia sat up taller, even cleared her throat. "Why do you think you should have known…" she asked, returning her attention back to her, now rather skimpy, remaining serving of chocolate mousse. She forced her body to communicate a more stand-offish air, and elaborated, "…known that it would _not_ be from an automobile's tires?" She popped her final spoonful of mousse into her mouth and waited.

William's heart dropped with the loss of her closeness, her attention back on one of his mistakes. A sigh, before he found the thought. William said coolly, "An automobile would have driven over both legs," the keen logic of the statement itself explaining why he was annoyed with himself.

"Yes. Yes, it would have," she agreed plainly. She would not admit it aloud, hiding her own annoyance with herself for not thinking that same logic through, as well, because she did not want to give William that much right now.

Instead, Julia changed the subject. She suggested that he could work with his weights, or maybe on the case, while she spent time with William Jr. She wanted to give the baby a bath, and she would play with him afterwards, for a while, before his bedtime. There was a new story she had found that she wanted to read to him…

 _Unbeknownst to the other, each of them had had a flashback related to the image in their minds of the baby in the tub with her, to the lovely time, rather recently, when William had shared the tub with their little toddler, and the baby had had so very much fun, they all did, cherishing the child's joyful squeals of excitement and hearty splashing._

Julia pushed the happy memory aside, and, not even listening for his response, she stood from the table, lifting their son with her, and thanked Eloise, especially for the special Chocolate Mousse, and then said to their little son as she turned and walked away. "Mommy and you are going to have a bath. You love that deep water… I think you're half fish, hmm?" she giggled. The further away from William she got, the more her anger with him reemerged, her brain reasoning out her plan, " _I'd prefer spending time with you anyway, little one, at least you don't feel you need to_ _ **explain me**_ _all the time… and you're not ashamed of me, at least not yet. I should get a decade or so before I have to worry about that… with you, anyway…"_

William felt her shove. Eloise heard his big sigh.

)

Off at the edge of his workroom in their basement, William sat at his desk looking through farm machine designs in journals and other industrial innovation resources for a match to the bruise on the victim's leg. He had intended to work out, but had felt drawn to the problem bothering him in the case, so he had put it off. As often happened with him, time had passed unnoticed, thus he was a bit surprised when Julia brought the baby in to say goodnight. He laid the current journal down on the cluttered desk and declared, "I have visitors!"

Julia stayed in the door's threshold, releasing William Jr.'s tiny hand so their son could go to his father. She watched from the doorway as William scooped the boy up into his lap. From there, she told him that she had taught the toddler how to blow bubbles in the bath water. She gushed with pride adding, a contagious tone of astonishment as she said it, "And he ended up putting his whole head under the water. He loved it!"

Proving how insightful he was, that even though he was little, he still knew exactly what his Mommy was telling his Daddy, the baby leaned forward while still in William's lap, and made a bloobering, trumpety, sort of splattery blowing noise. Sitting upright again, shining a smile that could charm the world, he screeched, "Bubbas!"

 _Whoosh_ , he was suddenly boosted up high, his father standing and lifting him up, up, up into the air. Such giggles of glee, as his Daddy dropped him down and planted his face into the child's belly and blew enthusiastically into it while shaking his head around, making these muffled, growly, blubbery sounds, tickling the boy deliciously, only to pull his face back out and shoot the toddler back up into the sky, then look up excitedly into his little son's bright brown eyes and pause. "Bubbas!" he declared, and then he repeated the whole game again.

Authoritative, Julia's tone from the doorway, "Be careful not to get him too excited… he _**was**_ sleepy."

William brought the baby down against his chest, tucked his face close to the boy's little ear. It was so little, and soft, and cool from his bath against William's lightly stubbled cheek. _And my, he smelled so sweet_. "Your Mommy's right," he told his little son, "Mommy's so smart," as he walked over to join her.

"I'll tuck him in too?" he asked more than told.

"Oh… Um, I was going to rock him for a bit… and read him that bedtime story… maybe sing to him for a while.

William took a breath and wrinkled a corner of his mouth. _It was not directly conscious, but he felt left out._ "I still have to work out… anyway," he relinquished as he handed her their child. After they were gone, he turned and considered his weights in the corner. That's when he realized it… he was still wearing his tie.

)

His newest invention in his arms, William climbed their stairs after securing the house for the night. He was bubbling with excitement… it had worked! Not only had he repaired their second, broken, phonograph, but he had built into it a mechanism that allowed the machine, itself, to turn off when it reached the end of the phonogram. In this case, the recording was an old one. He was amazed he had been able to find it… Julia's old nursery rhyme, " _Three Little Maids_." This particular phonogram was the first one he had ever heard playing on Julia's phonograph in the morgue. _My God, that was a long time ago. He was so very, very fascinated with her then_. He remembered it down into his bones, the awe spreading, diffusing, igniting his body, as he discovered the playful song filling the air when he walked in to see her, _butterflies in his belly_ , to get her postmortem report. He could still hear it in his head, high-pitched, spirited, the song… " _Three little maids from school are we. Pert as a schoolgirl well can be. Filled to the brim with girlish glee…"_ He planned to put the phonograph on the top of the dresser in William Jr.'s room. They would be able to leave it playing a song for him to fall asleep to and walk out… the phonogram would end and the machine would turn off, hopefully after little William Jr. had drifted. It was perfect.

Their bedroom door was opened, lights on. _There were butterflies again_ , but, not the good kind. He and Julia were out of synch right now. Paused there, William wrinkled his mouth to himself at the thought… _so much better when the flutters were because he was still fighting against his falling madly in love with her._ _Clearly, that was a fight he had lost many, many moons ago._ Unconsciously, he sighed, in an effort to cope with the building pressure, imagining walking in to encounter Julia, her either crying again, or still angry with him... Glancing quickly at William Jr.'s cracked-opened door, he decided he would set the phonograph up tomorrow.

Their eyes met, and then both darted away from each other with a rush, instincts, then nerves, as William first entered the room. Julia was sitting at her vanity again, _gratefully_ , not crying. She was brushing her wavy, luminescent hair, already in her nightgown. He felt his reaction, besides his trepidation, there was, _there would always be_ , love, and the delicious awareness of the effect the sight of catching her in a golden moment of beauty had on him… something deep and warm and tingly, the closest thing to capturing the name of the feeling was joy.

Julia's eyes widened, expressing her surprise, "My old phonograph?" she wondered.

Standing taller, anticipating impressing her, William carried the phonograph over to rest it on top of his bureau. "Yes," he explained, "I fixed it… and even better, I created a mechanism to turn it off once it reaches the end of the phonogram. We can play your old song… " _Three Little Maids Are We…"_ um, we can play it for him tomorrow." He dared a glance. She had a smile. William's mouth lifted into a smile upon seeing it. "Uh… I… um, we can buy him some other recordings as well… I figure," he suggested with that modest corner of the mouth wrinkle she'd become accustomed to.

"That's lovely, William," she remarked. Her eyes returned to the mirror, taking up finishing with her hair. She had managed to stop herself from saying more, to hold her tongue, resetting the mood, knowing she did not want to be undone by his innovativeness, his brilliance, or kindness, or just all-around amazingness. _No. No. She was annoyed with him… she remembered it now, him embarrassed by her, hurrying to offer some less damaging interpretation of what she had been saying to the Baker House adoption committee. Strangely though, and she was unsure why,_ but she noticed that, upon thinking about it, _his kindness had only made her more upset._

Her coldness made clear, William repressed a sigh. He put away his jacket, and his vest, tucked his badge in its special cubby in his bureau, then hung his tie, and put away his shoes, then took off his shirt and put it in the pile for Eloise to take to the drycleaners on the floor in the closet. Partially undressed, he gathered up his pajamas and headed for their bathroom. He would shower even though he hadn't exercised. Every muscle in his body was knotted… A hot, very, very, hot shower… it would help.

So unexpectedly it played inside his head, sparked by the comfy, familiar feeling of the fabric of his own pajamas in his fingers, slipping over the naked skin of his ribs and across the tender flesh on the inside of his arm, as he draped them there. The sensations gushed through him like lightning, like thunder, for he remembered her, _my God she had been so sexy_ , _Julia, naked all but for HIS pajama top… And it was conspicuously large on her, and…_ whew _, so… short above her long legs, and he could see… so much… and he wanted, so badly, to touch… to…_

William shut the enticing fantasy down with a jolt. Not taking the time to think about it, to decide, he gathered up his courage and cleared his throat… _And he felt her lift his eyes to him_ , in the reflection in the mirror. And he said, "Julia, you were wrong, earlier… I was not ashamed of you, never, ever… I'm pretty sure I never will be, either." There was instant regret, his attempt only re-flaring her tears. He pinched his lips and dropped his head, and walked away, defeated.

In the shower memories played, in the cascading spray, and with the slippery feel of the soap on him, and the smell and the burn of the hot steam in his lungs. He remembered their making love there, against the hard, tiled wall of the shower… _"Was that just last night… and again with Julia, in the pajama top, downstairs in the kitchen – with middle of the night hot chocolate, too?"_ he questioned his memory. _It felt like years_. Julia's aloofness, coldness, hurt. Images, just images flashed… of her refusing his hand as she dismounted from the cab, walking away from him with the baby in the kitchen, after dinner, turning away to ignore him just now, suddenly miles and miles away… And those tears… And then that snide comment while in the meeting at Baker House, chilled him again, her tone in his head much more sarcastic than it had been before, " _If I'm so competent, William, then I suppose I can explain my own arguments."_ William's eyes narrowed, wishing not to let the image in, his jaw locked, teeth clenched. Immediately, he changed gears, focusing on cleaning, and rinsing, pushing away the thoughts.

Yet, those invasive thoughts snuck back in, unavoidable. " _Why didn't you just keep your big mouth shut, William_ ," he derided himself, " _She's right. Julia Ogden is completely capable of explaining herself, explaining our situation, to anyone…."_ He chuckled to himself in his head, scoffed, " _Not usually my problem, is it? Saying too much?"_ He knew it like the back of his hand, his story, their story – him stunned, eyes filled with tears, mouth dropped opened, no words… head shaking with the failure, so, so often, no words. And now, now all of a sudden, he's telling _HER_ what she meant to say. " _What the hell's wrong with me? Why on Earth would I do that?"_

He remembered an aversive feeling he had in the meeting, right before he had interrupted Julia, when she brought up the fact that they had a nanny. It had made him jerk, probably due to his own discomfort with now being a man of wealth. His eyes had rushed around the room, worried that the committee members might have seen his reaction. That's when he saw it, that snooty Mrs. Brekenridge's expression, paling, her upper lip curling upward, forehead wrinkling… He didn't even remember thinking, he had just shot forward, on impulse, to try to stop Julia…

)

Ready for bed, in his pajamas, William softly closed the bathroom door behind him. Julia had left only his lamp on, next to their bed. She was sleeping, _or pretending to be sleeping_ , he thought. His sigh was loud. _No sign of bedding for him to take to the couch,_ the uncertainty of it made him frown.

She felt his weight shift the mattress as he sat on its edge, tilting her towards him just a little. Every molecule had been tuned behind her to hear him, to sense him, as she lay there. Another sigh. She pictured him in her mind's eye, heard the soft movement of his pajama top, as reached up to run his fingers through his dark hair. _It would be wet and cool from the shower_. Then, she was sure of it, he would rub his forehead. _My God, he's such a good man,_ tears re-swelled, with Julia feeling such an acute upsurge of aching, for this man's kindness only made her feel worse. She had hurt him, was hurting him. _She felt awful_. She tried to stop the wave of crying that was overtaking her, took a deep breath, but she was unable to keep it at bay, and her crying resumed. _He would know! He would know…_ Worried that he would try to comfort her, she considered, planned, that if he did so, then she would go downstairs and sleep on the couch. It would be the only way…

He knew… _Julia was holding her breath_ , but, he heard her, little gasps, desperate, masked, as she tried to get air. He swore he could hear it, the sound of a huge, salty, crystal teardrop landing, with the smallest _plunk,_ on her pillow. His heart sunk with the pain of it. William lifted the covers, slipped into the bed. He reached over and clicked out the light, and lay there, stiff, isolated, thinking, confused, not knowing what to do. _She is usually so strong. It almost seems like it's not even Julia_. Never before had she **not** believed him – it hurt so. _How could she think he was ashamed of her? It made no sense_.

He remembered a lesson he had learned years ago, back when he had lost her – her leaving to go to Buffalo. He had figured it out then, in order _**to get her**_ back, they needed to be _**to-get-her**_. At the time, the discovery had felt like magic, the wordplay solidifying his confidence in his plan. First, he had searched backwards to the time that they had last felt _together_ , and then he had figured out what had gone wrong. Back then, it had been his not telling her that her sterility did not stop him from loving her, from wanting to spend the rest of his life with her, from wanting to marry her. He had tried to fix it, back then, and failed. He'd missed his chance, he was too late. She would marry another. Now, when he searched backwards to find when they last felt together before this current tear, he arrived at the critical point that he had been obsessing about since it had happened. He would need to talk about interrupting her during the meeting today… explain why he thought he did it.

His voice crossed the darkness, not too loudly, not to quietly. _She was right, she could tell by the tenderness of it, he knew she was crying…_ _He knew, by the silence, by her shallow breathing, that she was listening with all her might._

"I feel…unseen, Julia. And I'm hurt, I suppose, that you do not believe me… about not being embarrassed by what you were saying… to the committee today, and of not being ashamed of you." There was a pause, listening. William took a breath, perhaps another approach. "When I interrupted you, um… I've been thinking extensively about that. Wealth, having it… makes me uncomfortable, still, I guess. I feel like it gives me so many privileges, and that I'm no better, that I have done nothing to deserve them, nothing more than anybody else. And there's a kind of guilt I feel about it, maybe even shame. And, then, well your mentioning our wealth, and being able to afford a nanny…" He took another deep breath, letting the memory inside of him play again. He shook his head slowly in the dark, and went on, "Well, I saw that that horrible, critical, Mrs. Breckenridge cringe when you said it, when you suggested that they had probably even been raised by nannies themselves, and I thought… um, I thought that her harsh reaction was probably because _her nanny_ had been crotchety and cruel when she was a child – not at all like Claire-Marie, and _her mother_ probably was mean and cold, and… not at all like you, and, well, I thought the picture the woman would have in her mind of our son's life, and that of the baby we hoped to adopt from them, would not be like the bliss of our reality. And I panicked, and I jumped in."

Julia's brain ran a million miles a minute. So many thoughts, but there was ONE, one that was whispering its truth, screaming it in her head, dizzying her as it sucked up the little remaining oxygen, **"** _ **He's taking the blame for it! He's taking the blame – but it was you. You! It was you**_ _…"_ She couldn't do it – let him take responsibility when it should be her. Somewhere inside of her, a damn burst opened, and she was overrun by emotion. She felt sick, and dizzy, and sweaty, and cold, all at once, as the world seemed to get away from her. _She wasn't worthy of him_. And she told, into her soggy pillow, her voice squeaky as she pulled her knees up closer to her chest, "I… I overreacted, William. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, ashamed… that I made you think that it was you. And you…" her crying became too strong, stopping her words before she could tell him, _that he was so good, so good to her, that he would take the burden of it for her. But that his doing so only made her feel worse._ Julia cocooned herself from the onslaught, curling up into the fetal position. She felt him move closer, debate with himself about touching her…

She pulled in some air, and slid away from him, perched herself at the very edge of the mattress. "It's because of me. It's all because of me, that you can't have the family you want, that you deserve," she confessed. "They hate me, they think I'm dangerous and selfish, even publish it in the papers, telling the whole world that a child would be better-off _**motherless**_ than to be with me…"

It was unbearable. Instinctively, she protected herself, threw up the walls. "I wish I could crawl in the ground and die!" she sobbed, her shame overwhelming her.

So quickly, she was up out of bed, the light from the moon through the window enough, enough to find the blankets she would take to the couch. They were high up on shelf in the closet…

William was there, right there.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Julia, please!" he begged her, "Please don't do that." He reached up, held her hand, blocked it from pulling down the blankets. Desperation, such desperation as he tried to calm himself down. He strained to find her face in the dimness, her eyes. He needed her to see his honesty, to know that what he was saying was true. "I knew we could not have children before I married you. Remember? Remember our wedding… that day?" He breathed. He brought his hand down… so grateful, she brought hers down too. "I knew all that then. Picture it, Julia. You'll know it's true," he asked, suddenly having an idea, to focus her, to connect her, "Which lapel had my yellow rose pinned to it?"

 _And her mind flashed the beautiful memory of being flirtatious with him in the morgue, just yesterday, he had brought her yellow roses… or was it the day before? And he had said the flower had been like a badge he wore on their wedding day, and ever more. And there was the image, so beautiful, foggy seen through her veil, of the sight of William waiting for her by the alter…_

Julia seemed to settle, to breathe deeper, to breathe easier. _Her eyes, he saw them_. She looked to his pajama top, just above his left pectoral muscle, _so exquisite, his contours_ , and she reached up and touched him. "Here," she said.

Such relief, lower his voice, slower, "Do you remember my face… that day?"

She nodded, still gazing where the flower had been.

William stepped closer, leaned his head in near her, to just float his lips over her ear, and whisper, "I knew all those things then, about you, and I couldn't stop smiling, because marrying you made me happier than I ever thought possible. I know that you know that. And I haven't regretted it for one moment, Julia. And then, God even blessed us with William Jr. And…"

Julia fell into him, hugged him tight. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.

He reached behind her, gathering up, raising her nightgown, riding it up over her knees, then higher, discovering, despite already knowing it, that she was naked underneath. He stepped his knee between her legs and lowered himself down low, lifting her up so she could wrap her long legs around his hips, and she locked her arms around his neck. She whispered her salty tears into his ear, "So sorry… so sorry…"

"Shh…" he replied, "Shh…" while he carried her back to their bed. First, sitting them down on her side of the mattress, her straddling his lap. Gently, he laid them both down, her head, his head, finding her pillow.

The tenderness palpable in him, William whispered to her that she needed to stop crying. That it would be alright. Wrapping his arms around her, he told her from the heart, as she nestled her face into his chest, and he stroked her hair softly, catching the delicate edge of her ear with each glancing touch, "Julia, you are being battered, battered and beaten down, by our trying to adopt a baby, I see that, it hurts me terribly to see it, and I would understand if you couldn't bear it anymore and you wanted to stop trying…"

 _Apprehension rung in her ears, a zinging of alertness throughout her whole body, for she had felt it was already clear, already decided, that they had_ **no chance** _of ever being accepted to adopt a child, that it was sheer folly, even worse, with all their… with all HER, to be more accurate, faults and flaws being publicly displayed under the spotlight. She had already given up._

He went on, tucking his mouth closer to her, his voice so familiar, and beautiful, "Julia… please hear me under that hurt,"

 _And with those words, she felt the warmth of his breath, the healing sincerity of his words, trickling down through the cracks in the solidified, rigid, unyielding confines of all those harsh words and judgments, all those attacks in the newspapers, all those unheard hushed criticisms as she entered the room._

William breathed in deeply, warmed and urged by the intimate scent of her so close, "I love you, I love you with every ounce, every inch, the very fabric of every molecule, every atom, of my body. And, yes, I do want more children…" he admitted with a pause, his voice then dropping lower, hitting a note inside of her, so perfect, so deep, "And, I also know that you are a phenomenally wonderful mother, one who is naturally warm and nurturing, one who encourages her children to grow, to be confident and courageous and compassionate, and who loves with her whole heart. You foster in them the skills they'll need to lead vibrant and meaningful lives, more so than any other woman I've ever known, have ever even dared to dream of. You're the one for me, Julia, I knew it since the first day we met. And I thank God, every single day, for bringing our lives together so that I could finally choose _you_ to be my wife, and to be the mother of _our_ son, and of any other children God may bless us with in our lives to come…" Needing another breath, he paused, he kissed her hair, "And these people don't see that. They only see that you are driven professionally, seeing that as being selfish, and that you, in their eyes, brazenly, standup and fight against the structures of society, not because they can see that these structures are unjust or cruel, but because they see you as merely rebellious and antagonistic in your nature. You need to remember, when they sling their mud at you, that they don't see _**you**_ , they see what _they thin_ k you are, because they are only able to see those parts of you that frighten them, those that they see as a threat. But you know, and I know, and all the people in our lives that you know love you, Julia, we all see who you really are, kind, and warm, and so, so strong and brave. None of us will ever think badly of you, no matter what they say in the newspaper, or if we never are approved by some stuffy committee to adopt a child, because we all know, because we know _you_ , Julia Ogden." He felt her body soften as he spoke. Her crying had ceased. Still hushed, she hugged deeper into him, breathing, speechless, silent, but listening, allowing his care to console her, she stayed burrowed close to him. He leaned down and kissed her hair again, took in her smell, stroked and cherished, and rocked her soul, for a time.

Eventually, William's voice broke the silence, more matter-of-factly he said, "It doesn't help, my being Catholic, and from a lower class, and being a detective…"

Julia shifted her position, resting up more on top of him, as he rolled over onto his back and she placed her head in its usual spot on his chest.

"Or me, working with dead bodies," he was relieved to hear her sharing, to hear her tone as stronger, to feel that she was with him, wholly and totally with him, again.

"William," she suggested, "Maybe we should consider trying to adopt an older child. I know we've been hoping for an infant, a child to be William Jr.'s younger sibling… I guess, since both of us were the older one, you with Susana, even Jasper, and me with Ruby, well I suppose we instinctively thought he would be happier… And an infant is more influenced by his parents than an older child, I guess we wanted that too." She imagined herself holding I tiny baby, and she wanted it so badly she felt the ache of it. After a sigh, pushing that longing away, she said, "Of course, maybe that's the same reason they'd be more likely to give us an older child… I'd be less likely to mess it up."

 _Quiet… William deciding in his head_ _ **not to**_ _pick up her self-reproaching comment, resolving that he had already corrected her self-image in this regard as best he could…_

Then Julia said, "I read this terrible story in the newspaper, someone quoted a veterinarian doctor that works at the Riverdale Zoo?... She was a woman, a woman veterinarian…" her pause suggesting that she wanted him to be impressed, in the dim moonlight, and she sensed him nod, "She was upset, very upset… an elk got worked up into a rage as some teenage boys teased him and his mate," she shook her head, her face paling with disgust, "He got so bothered that he gored his mate, William. The vet had to euthanize her…" she sighed, "I mean, we end up fighting, you and I, with all this…" Julia lifted her arm up off of him and waved it in the air to demonstrate the vastness of their troubles. She returned to her point, "It's as if you end up attacking who you can, well, in this case _**I**_ ended up attacking who I could, and that someone is someone closest to you, that you can have an impact, even though you're really angry at someone, or something, else… and we… we end up maybe one of us on the couch… because the adoption committees and the press are attacking, goading, closing in…"

"That elk story is truly awful," he pulled her back down into him. He waited, thoughts flowing about in his mind, then added, "I can see it though, such a disgusting thing happening… being natural. But, the elk was angry, Julia, and I think we were, well, I'm not as much angry as scared…" William wrinkled a corner of his mouth – his admitting it face.

Julia raised herself up on an elbow, and hurried to ask, "Of what?" _but she knew, she knew what she had dreaded most, the spotlight on them now, on their reproduction, of all things, and it worried her too, it truly worried her…_

William's mouth-wrinkle became a frown as he elaborated, "If a reporter talks to Dr. Tash, if they find out..."

"Isaac is completely loyal, William… a true friend. You know that," she insisted, trying to put the horrid, terrifying issue aside.

William inhaled deeply, working to accept it, at least for now.

Julia changed the subject, even tried one of her weak, and therefore awful, puns, "It seems that talking it through helps… those of us who are of the tormented ilk… Or should I say " _ **elk**_ ," she elbowed him in the rib and giggled.

Such a cocky smile on his face, she knew though she could not see it, when he retorted, "That… and chocolate ' _ **moose**_."

" _Good one, William_ ," she thought to herself and settled back down on his chest. "Yes, that and chocolate moose," she agreed.

All was well again, all was well.


	6. 6: Perhaps Just a PAPER Tiger afterallT

The Lady, or the Tiger: Chapter 6: Perhaps, Just a PAPER Tiger after all

 _ **A part of her knew that something was off**_ **, that she was** _ **too old**_ **for what was happening here. Like a mosquito's droning hum near your ear, it was annoying, so she smacked at it with her attention once or twice to get it to go away. The classroom smelled so dusty.** _ **How could it smell old and musty like this if children filled it for hours and hours each day?**_ **Julia wondered. Mrs. Marks sat, stiff and judgmental and cold, behind her overly large desk. Julia's father matched the stern school teacher's body language, for he had become accustomed to getting irritated at these parent-teacher meetings, and Julia's nervousness had put him on edge before it had even begun. "** _ **My god, what has she done now?**_ **" he dreaded.**

 **Unfortunately, Julia's father believed it was more effective, more potent,** _ **and likely more humiliating**_ **, for Julia, herself, to hear her teachers' complaints, so he insisted she sit silently behind them while the two adults met. It felt like she was already being punished. She had learned a long time ago, that she'd best be as quiet and still as a church mouse at a Feline Sunday service, if she had any hopes of avoiding a stern talking to, and going to bed without supper, and not being permitted to leave the house, at all, for a week, not even just to walk in the woods. She would much have preferred to remain at home and pace frantically back and forth waiting for her fate.**

" **Well, Dr. Ogden," Mrs. Marks started, "Julia has a rampant imagination and a stubborn streak to boot. The assignment called for students to research inventors and write a biography on one from the 18** **th** **century. I'm afraid your daughter, despite numerous warnings that her topic was inappropriate, insisted on handing in a final work of pure fiction…"**

 **It took all Julia had to hold her tongue. Her report had been on Marie Christina Bruhn, a woman who had invented a safe and effective type of packaging for gunpowder for the Swedish Army back in the late 1700s. It was all true, but Mrs. Marks had refused to believe it. And** _ **she**_ **was calling** _ **Julia**_ **stubborn…**

" **Gunpowder?!" she heard her father raise his voice, jerking her to alert.**

" **Something so unseemly as gunpowder?" he questioned again.**

" **Yes, Dr. Ogden," replied Mrs. Marks, "and… to make matters worse, Julia insisted that it was a** _ **woman**_ **who had done it!"**

" _ **First off,**_ **" Julia began her argument in her head, "** _ **It wasn't '**_ **gunpowder** _ **,' it was a '**_ **package'** _ **that would safely hold and transport gunpowder. And secondly…**_ **" And with this thought her head seared with such anger it made her teeth grit tight with such a force that it threatened to chip a tooth,** _ **"Marie Christina Bruhn WAS, most definitely, a WOMAN**_ **!"**

 **The teacher clicked her tongue and shook her head disapprovingly, "It does seem that Julia's behavior consistently threatens to leave one with no option but to see her as becoming quite a bold and immodest woman in the future," she concluded.**

 **Such a penetrating, hurtful, glare from her father plastered into Julia's eyes, filling them instantly with pools of tears. Her father gathered his hat from the teacher's desk and conceded, working to hide any hint of his shame in his voice, "Yes, we have had… problems with her tomboy antics. Um… Julia's mother…"** _ **He hesitated here, thinking that his wife had always been much too free with their two daughters, but it was getting much worse now**_ **… "Um, Julia's mother has not been well…" Her father stood, signaling for Mrs. Marks to stand as well.**

 **Julia forced herself to remain seated, kept her eyes low, submissive, respectful** _ **, tears hidden**_ **. She watched as a big, salty drop plopped down onto her skirt…**

" **I assure you Mrs. Marks," Dr. Ogden said, "Such behaviors will cease and Julia will behave as a proper girl from n…"**

 **Maybe it was because she WAS bigger now, Julia was not quite sure. But, what had sat inside her gut, nauseating her for years and years as a festering shame, exploded into fury, and her full-sized, adult self, hauled off and punched her father square on in the jaw, sending him flat out to the ground.**

 **Suddenly, unseen behind her, there was a shadowy, gray-skinned, rotten-toothed monster… and many more of them behind that one, closing in. One of them, the one closest to her, she could see his features even though she was not looking back, somehow seeing the whole scene from above her body at the same time as being down in it…** _ **The monster - IT WAS HER FATHER!**_

 _ **How could it be that the MONSTER was her father, wasn't her father on the ground right there in front of her? She stared at the man's body lying in the dirt, his hat next to him… a homburg!? "Odd," she thought, "Father didn't wear a homburg?" She stood there, frozen with the puzzle.**_

 **William's voice,** _ **it was definitely William's voice**_ **, called out, warning her "Julia! Look out!" He leapt up from the ground, her father now transformed into William…** _ **Or was Father always the monster?**_ **Julia's eyes dropped down to stare at the gaping injury in William's chest –** _ **BLOOD**_ **, so shocking and red… William had been GORED, the antler still sticking out from the wound through his heart. Her eyes jumped up to his beautiful brown eyes, desperate, pleading for him to be alright, for it not to be true. Her head shook from side to side in disbelief.** _ **How could she have hurt…**_

 **Unexpectedly, William dashed towards her, so strong, so fast, and he grabbed her and clutched her to him and hurled them both to the ground, surely covering her in his blood as he shielded her, his body over hers, protecting her as the danger barreled towards them.**

 **Her brain rushed to grasp it all –** _ **William, it was William she had hit, NOT her father… and he had sought to save her despite what she had done to him. He was protecting her. Oh, it ached, she loved him so.**_

 **Then, only then, once safely tucked underneath him, did she hear its rumble, first off in the distance, only a small quaking rattling up through her body into William's above her, a thundering that incessantly grew closer, louder, to the point that the roar shook the ground and quaked underneath them, and their eyes were forced to turn to see it, a herd of elk stampeding towards them… Wild, terrorized, frenzied with being tormented by the monsters, the cause of their distress no longer visible, only the humungous cloud of dust, more dense near the ground,** _ **near the ground where William and Julia were laying**_ **, where the hooves of the thundering elk pounded and struck the earth, running, crazed in their panic** _ **. They would be trampled!**_ **Her own voice, from deep, deep inside, told her that it was somehow not real, that it was a mirage, that it was something that used to be, but it was no longer, that, if she could just see the truth of that, they would be safe. And she knew, Julia knew she needed to tell him…**

 **She blurted it out in a rush, "I'm sorry, William," she cried and hugged and kissed at his ear from under him, pulling him down into her, sucking him close with all her might, as if she could pull them down into the ground to be safe. "Of course, you are not my father. I know that. And I… I should never have thought you would think so badly of me so. I'm so sorry…"**

" **Good," he answered in his winsome way, lifting away to take in the view of her underneath him and nod, and tip his hat.** _ **A marvel, how the man somehow seems to keep his hat…**_

" **Good," she replied, and sniffled back a tear. Grounded now, solid and secure, firmly planted to the earth, she glanced back in the direction of the raging storm of elk – there was nothing but clarity and quietude on the horizon now… the stillness of it slowing the passage of time, time…** _ **it moved too slowly**_ **, she noticed, the ripple of the wind through the curl on the fringe of her face… before he kissed her…**

Barely, barely, Julia awakened for a moment – to their bed, to his familiar safety next to her… _**home**_ **.** Sleep came, heavy, healed, delicious sleep. And when Julia awoke again, early, before the first crack of dawn, she knew then, her psychiatrist self knew it so clearly, that she had been transferring her feelings from her childhood relationship with her father onto her current relationship with William. It had been understandable – there were similarities. But, William Henry Murdoch always had her back. He would always have her back. Love-struck, lust rose in her, but it was different, different from the usual rush, more patient, more assured, more grateful, more generous.

She turned to him. It was dark, the darkest hour before dawn, the moon having had set some time ago, the curve of the Earth not yet angled correctly to capture the rays of the Sun and bend their light – _as William had attempted to do at the age of 12 when he ended up burning down Father Keegan's shed._ The time had not yet come for the Earth to entice the Sun into pinkening the sky.

The predawn autumn air was chilly, crisp, as Julia pushed the covers down off of them. She rolled over onto her hands and knees, studying his breathing, deep and slow. Shifting her weight to her haunches, she straightened up, gathered up the bottom of her nightgown, lifted it over her head, stretching tall in the blackness to feel the coolness brush her skin, and then tossed it to the floor.

She slid onto him, straddling him, smoothly and slowly mounting up on him, waking him, gentle, her lips to his cheek. "Mm," slipped out of her throat, raspy, as she encountered his manly stubble, and her kisses fluttered the flesh of his ear. His name, in a whisper, _**HER**_ whisper, lured, called, beckoned, as much from inside of his dreams as from outside of them, in their bedroom.

"Julia," his voice dry, "What're you doing?"

The softest giggle from her before she teased him, her seductive voice so intimately close, "If you can't tell, William, then I'm not doing it right."

A kiss to his lips, tempted his mouth to open to her, and her fingers pinched down the row of buttons at the center of his pajama top, and then, _and then, so dizzying, the centripetal force of it_ , luscious and slow she stunned him, thrilled him, shot a bolt of desire straight through him, direct and unbending, she snuck her hand under the waistband of his pajama bottoms, deliberately, smoothly, firmly, taking him. "Mm," her moan muffled into his mouth, overcome by the feeling of having him within her fingers.

 _Melting her, thoroughly melting her_ , so very succulently, his weakened, sharp, hushed, _gasp_ , at her boldness. Such a mountainous soaring as he grew more and more aroused. Pulsing, wave after wave rippled through her, as she lay on him, longing to be closer to him, wanting, with jungle-wild, steamy urges to _**POUR**_ all over him, and seep down into him. It drove her to press her malleable, soft, flesh into him, mush her weight down into him, heavy, into him, in upward, sultry, undulating, surges, over and over and over, matching, synchronizing, with the rhythm of her hold on him, breathtakingly snug, surrounding him completely, waking his more savage and primal essence.

Breathing changed, becoming fierce, his and hers, in the dark, the lush, raging bursts from his flaring nostrils deluging over her face as she kissed him.

It took all of the blood left in his brain, for most of it had rushed away to his groin, to think, to focus, to find, his reply. "I think you're doing it right," he finally pushed the words out into the air, scratchy, and whispery, and raspy, his voice, after he broke off their kiss, and found her supple, scrumptious nakedness with his hands in the blackness. " _Ohh… my… Mm…"_ absolutely crushing him, the fascinating curves of her buttocks as he memorized the shape, the feel, the buoyant, bouncy, moldable texture, of the two sumptuous orbs within his grasp…

Her breath, hot and humid, tinged his anticipation, just before his new flesh was seized. Her mouth sucked, the cadence of it intoxicating, on his earlobe, a premonition, _a warning_ , of what was to come… _down lower, down there_. William hung on, wobbling, only a feather-light grip on the edge of the fall, _almost, almost…_

His heart, _it was most definitely his heart_ _that sent him the message_ , William hearing it in the thick dark fogginess all abound, _her beautiful, beautiful soul is weary, it is sore, it needs to be loved with tenderness._ And with its whispered advising, desperately, William knew that they needed to touch, core to core, and so, he could **NOT** let her push him over the edge without her, he could **NOT** let her continue to work him up into a lathered frenzy of lusty euphoria that he would not be able to contain. _No, he had to stop her, to truly love her as he knew she needed to be loved._

" _Such deep and devoted lovemaking will take time… lots of TIME!"_ came the reminder in his head. William took heart from the blanketing darkness in the room, for it held the promise that they had enough, enough time for this moment in eternity to expand and stretch sufficiently for him to love her slowly, completely, wholly. So, he rolled her over, forcefully, insisting that she yield to him.

And then, William Henry Murdoch loved his wife to the utter precipice of her survival, his honey-sweet kisses and tingly nips and sucks making a beeline for the one spot he wanted, the one spot that he knew that _she wanted_ him to touch more than any other, so much, taking it hungrily and smoothly, until she would have willingly sacrificed her very life to have him closer to her, to touch her deeply, to thunder and pound and drive his love into her with everything he had, until the world would implode and they would become one. And when he did finally take her, love her, fill her, rough, and abandoned, those fingers of hers, the same ones that had, just moments earlier, twisted and tortured their bedsheets into little teepees to cope with the impacts of his silky-smooth, juicy, loving, those fingers now scratched and dug and gouged their nails into his back to withstand the torqueing force of his rugged thrusts, needing him so desperately to be… just… that… one… drop… closer.

Glorious, came the breathless promise, the floaty feel before the sinking, the hint that, inevitably, the wave would hit, spun her as it hovered, and her breath told him that it was coming, and then the dam broke and his pure, liquid heat flooded and soaked into – each – and – every – thirsty – cell, _rhythm_ , so primal and humid, filled her, seeped down into her, surged and rushed up into her, through and through her, drenching into the very marrow of every bone. _My God, how he loved her_. The honesty of it, the power of it, had strained every ounce of her in the effort to bring him closer, and after the waves, the huge, huge waves of finally having him touch her, perfectly, where and how she had so urgently needed to be touched, after the waves had collapsed her into a series of moans, each reaching, and slowing, and diving lower and lower down into her core, to sound, and then…

When a stillness, and a quiet, all but for their rushed, hot, strong, breaths and their drumming heartbeats, followed the rage of the intense whirlwind, and she began to cry, a soothing, intensely deeply cathartic cry, he held her and rocked her and told her, so dreamily, "I'm here. I'm right here. I'll always be here. Shh… Shh."

With her voice squeaky from the intensity of the passion of their touch and the exhaustion of their drained efforts, she wept, "You can't promise me that, William," because it hurt, so much, living with her profound wishing that it were true.

"But I can," he replied, kissing her cheek, taking in her salty, slippery, tears… tasting her, loving her.

Feeling more logical, after a breath, the stability of that logic calming her, she protested, and in her doing so attempted to harbor herself from the unbearable pain that the mere thought of losing him exposed inside of her, "You can't know the future, so you can't promise me that…"

"But I know the present, and I know my love for you is undying," he insisted, adding, "Is not yours for me?"

"It feels that way," she sniffled, giving at least that much.

"Our love is undying, Julia…"

"It may be," she answered him, "but you're not, William... You're not," she assured.

The lack of an answer from him swelled as the clock ticked and ticked, his absent response taken to settle the matter, and she took a deep breath, tears evaporated away now, and gave him the signal that he could roll them over now – gentle, clear, the press of her palm against his chest.

Together, no words, boundaries still blurry, memories seesawed and swayed them, to and fro, to and fro, recalling the love they had just made, the perfect touches, the yearning moans and the fulfilled moans, and the rippling, warm sensations submerging completely through them… Contentment, so lovely, so pleasant, so delightful, filled them for a time.

)

The baby woke them with his little knock.

"Maybe we shouldn't have left his crib down… encouraged his climbing out," William complained with his customary admitting it wrinkle of the corner of his mouth.

The toddler may have been able to maneuver himself well enough to get out of his crib and come to their door, but he still had not yet mastered using the doorknob – gratefully. William and Julia rushed about behind the door trying to find, and get into, their pajamas.

"We'll be right there, little one," Julia called out.

Their son's baby-pitched reply enchanted their Mommy-and-Daddy hearts with its cuteness, "O.K. Mommy."

Julia managed to get covered up first and hurried to the door to let him in, scooping the child up into her arms and kissing and kissing and kissing him. She brought him over to the bed where they cuddled with him happily for a while. Once a bit of roughhousing began, and William got a good whiff of the backside of William Jr.'s diaper, he wrinkled his nose with the stenchy _ripeness_ of it and declared, "Whew, someone needs a nappy change." Rising to the call, William volunteered himself to do the job. He would be the one to ready the little boy for the day, "At least until 'Care-Mary' gets here," he told his son, using the little boy's own way of saying his nanny's name, as he held the tiny, little hand and guiding the toddler out, leaving Julia behind to get on with her morning routines.

)

Julia heard the giggling and playing from down the hall, William's 'monster' voice, the baby's gleeful shrieks, the little pitter-patters of the toddler's escaping footsteps, and William threatening, "How fast do you think you can go on those little, tiny, monkey legs, anyway, Little Man? Ooh, I'm gonna get you!" _William Murdoch was such a wonderful father_ , she noted to herself for the umpteenth time, teardrops welling-up with the thought. She made herself exhale deeply, felt the heat of the burning air flowing over her heart, surging the reminder of the pain. _He had always wanted a big family… and it still hurt so badly to know that_ _ **she**_ _was the reason he would never have one._

By the time Claire-Marie had arrived and William came back in, Julia had recovered, moved on, had started planning and thinking about her busy day ahead. _It was Friday, and they still had the press to deal with._

Needing privacy, now that the nanny was about, William closed the door behind him. He quickly began undressing, reaching back and pulling his pajama top off over his head. On his way to the bathroom he shared with her how lovely their little boy was, her agreeing, of course. He popped his head back out and said, "Oh, and you'll be glad to hear, it smells like Eloise is making us her famous French Toast."

Instantly, Julia's mouth watered and her stomach yearned. "French Toast!" she declared, "Now that is good news." She looked back into the mirror and focused on freeing a curl or two from her hairdo, quite conscious, every time that she performed this particular ritual, of her motivations, wanting to have a dangling curl available for William to play with whenever he was feeling _flirtatious_. She spoke louder so he could hear her over his tooth-brushing, "Eloise has a magical way of knowing which one of us needs her cooking cure the most, does she not?"

"Mm," she heard his reply.

Finished, she came to watch him shaving at the bathroom doorway. She caught his eye, for a moment, in the mirror, _mmm,_ _the man was so beautiful when he smiled_.

His face smooth and clean, William pulled out his, not so secret, well not between them at least, Chinese spice-scented aftershave.

"Let me," she stepped forward and suggested, and they both felt their worlds begin that familiar lust-inspired spin.

She stood dangerously close to him, and they both dropped their eyes down to the tiny bottle, now in her hands. They seemed to hold their breath as she turned the cap, so that once the lid had freed the aroma, and their need for air, combined with the magnificent impact of the smell, guaranteeing that they would each become dizzy with the deliciousness of it. She felt him watching her as she spread some of the invigorating liquid all over her palms and up her fingers. In her periphery, his chest, his rugged and gorgeous chest, bare and hunky, lifted acutely with each rushed breath, and she felt her womb scrunching with want for him. Softly, she slapped her dampened hands to each side of his face, his neck, and she stepped closer, her bosoms, inside her blouse, so close they could almost, almost, touch him, and she slipped her liquidy, cooled fingers back behind his ears, taking the tender flesh of them in her fingers and squeezing and running her fingers along his sensitive outer ear, then backwards, scratching into his hair and tingling his scalp. Oh, she was becoming aroused, and his breathing… it told her that he was too, and she let her hands peruse him, down his neck, out over his big shoulders, and down to ride the breathtaking ups and downs of the chiseled muscles of his chest, then down further, to his stomach, so flat and firm, towards…

He stopped her there, though it wasn't easy. "Mrs. Murdoch," he said, with a threatening tone, "Are you starting trouble, again?" he raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh," she responded, _so devilish and enticing her tone_ , " **Trouble** , you call it?"

"We are… I am, late, I'm sure you are aware," he explained, one of her golden, twisty, curls in his grasp. Delicious, she gazed into his chocolaty eyes, and basked in the heavenly feel of his fingers just glancing against her cheek as he fiddled with her curl, and then he slipped his fingers in, to cup her face, and she tilted her head, so hungry for his kiss.

 _And_ _ **Mm**_ _, this kiss was magnificent_ …

And then William kissed a trail down her jaw to her neck, and there he discovered it, casually hanging on its chain all along. So deeply he felt the significance of it, as he pulled back, and looked into her warm blue eyes. "You're wearing _**the locket**_ ," he smiled.

It was the locket that had become magnetized to his badge when they had kissed goodbye as she was leaving him for Buffalo… The same one she had worn again to cope with her worry about him, back when she was pregnant with William Jr., and he had disappeared somewhere on route to Winnipeg while working undercover to catch a killer riding the trains as a hobo with George. And she had told him then – when he had finally returned, beaten up by the horrendous experiences he had had out in the jungle, and after they had fought so very, very, terribly about his not telling her that he would be staying with Ettie Weston in Winnipeg, and his betrayal in doing so that had hurt her so very, very deeply – she had told him then that the picture of him in the locket was quite old, from a newspaper clipping from long, long before he had even gotten up the nerve to ask her to join him for their absinthe-infused gourmet picnic, and also that, in the other half of the locket, there was a picture of her, so that when it was closed, she and William would be together, face-to-face, over her heart.

William knew, ever since then, that Julia wore the locket when she felt the need to heal. He took the cool, glossy, metal locket in his fingers and rubbed it and held it there admiring it, reflecting on its history, its value, its meaning, to them.

When the intensity of the moment faded, William reminded her that Eloise's French Toast was waiting downstairs, prompting Julia to gather up William Jr. and head down to the kitchen while he hurried to try to avoid being any later than he already was.

) (

Grateful that, at least, the badgering of the group of reporters who had been waiting outside their home seemed focused on the dangers of their dreaded Body Farm and his inept handling of the case, rather than on their reproductive history and their efforts to adopt, William suddenly decided to change tactics mid-stream. He would appeal to their better angels, the leap of faith required in doing so centering on his being able to believe that they had better angels to hear his plea. The decision had sprung from a feeling, _more a sound really_ , from deep inside of himself. It was a simple ' _click_ ,' the sound, much like the sound of a light switch being flicked on. He had experienced this before, and he knew, now, that it resulted, if he would let it, in an alteration in his perspective, one as significant as the change in a room that happens when the light switches from the darkness of ' _off,_ ' to the light of ' _on_.' He had learned to trust it, having suffered the painful consequences of ignoring the little ' _click_ ' in the past. It was probably stirred by Julia's wearing of _**the locket**_ this morning, because one of the more important times when he had heard it and ignored its secret sound was associated specifically with the little, metal necklace, _**the locket**_ , back when it warned, with its subtle metallic ' _click_ ' telling them, when it magically became joined to his badge, that they were meant to be together, back so long ago, when he lost her, ultimately for her to marry another.

"Gentlemen," the term applicable as none of the reporters present were women, William altered his tone, the change catching everyone's attention, "Solving a murder is extremely difficult when the identity of the victim cannot be ascertained. That has been the challenge with this particular case, as the victim was shot in the back of the head, from point blank range, probably with a shotgun, completely obliterating his facial bones, making it impossible for Dr. Ogden to use our forensic technique, developed from Hiss' work, of facial reconstruction from a skull based on average thickness of flesh patterns. Thus, the victim remains a man without a face. Further, his fingermarks match none on file. He had no clothing or other items, tattoos, or notable scars. Really, there is no way to identify him as is…

"Just sounds like more excuses, Murdoch," a voice called out.

"Meant more as an explanation," William countered, quickly moving on. "Now, this case has been practically devoid of clues, but, as our pathologist recently pointed out to me…" he nodded at his wife, "this UV photograph of the month-old bruise on the victim's thigh _**IS**_ a clue..."

Grumbling began to build…

Louder, William hurried, "I'd like to offer you the opportunity to help us get the most out of this clue, to enlist your readers to help us identify what made the bruise."

Julia, next to him almost gasped – the men suddenly hushed and heeded.

"You could help solve a challenging case instead of gripe and complain and find fault with our efforts, ultimately only aiding the murderer by doing so," William added. William reached into his vest pocket to pull out the folded-up drawing of the bruise. "This is the actual size of the object," he said. He unfolded his paper with his accurately-sized drawing of the mark from the UV photograph. "Publish this drawing, with its dimensions, and that it landed on the back of the victim's thigh with a force of about 2000 pounds, breaking his femur. As you know, we have this impact mark of the object that injured the victim severely, from a month ago… if not for this new way of photographing the body, we would not have this evidence…" William stopped himself there, not wanting to blow his own horn too much. "Ask for citizens' help in identifying whatever made it. Once we know the object that broke the back of this man's thigh a month ago, we can pick up the trail…"

There was a rush as the reports all moved closer, wanting to be the one to get the drawing first.

William held up his hand as he quickly tucked the paper back in his pocket. Please come by Stationhouse 4 in about an hour. I'll have copies for you all then, with the other relevant details."

Locking Julia's elbow into his, William ended the reporters' interviews with that, escorting her protectively to the street to get a cab. Fortunately, there was a regular driver waiting. William helped her up into the cab. They both knew he would not get in, that he was going to ride his bicycle. Leaning in to kiss her cheek, she told him quietly, lingering him there, "That was brilliant, William."

She watched, half expecting him to blush, instead he seemed to beam, clamping his lips together, his admitting it face. It made her giggle.

He warned her, just before he closed the carriage door, that there would likely be a whole new bunch of reporters to contend with at the morgue.

"I'll tell them to head over to the stationhouse to get the big scoop," she teased.

"Yes. Yes, it promises to be quite a zoo, doesn't it?" he replied, tipping his hat for his final, charming, goodbye.

)(

At the morgue later, Miss James gave Julia an idea… when she shared her feelings of frustration and helplessness about the stories in the papers this morning, shaking her head with a sigh and saying, "It's just that they are all so… derogatory and unfair, truly, truly unfair. And I just feel so bad for the detective."

Julia pictured her husband, sitting over there at his desk, rubbing his brow, forcing himself to read the reporters' berating words about him, about his work on this case, and using it all as fuel to get people fired-up about forcing them to close their body farm, and her heart ached for him. She told herself, told Miss James, that he had probably actually fixed all this negativity and criticism this morning, with what he had said to the reporters, with his asking the reporters to _help_ rather than _hinder_ the investigation, to take heart because Detective Murdoch had probably fixed it. Still, the pain seemed to hang around, and then she pictured it, her showing up with a **warm lunch** for him to brighten his day. _She would do it! Order lunch from the Windsor House Hotel, ask Jason, who had always treated them so well there, to get it all ready to for her to pick-up for them_. _They would eat the surprise meal together in William's office._ The ache in her chest warmed, bringing a Mona Lisa smile, an air of sneaky satisfaction, to her face. " _Yes! Yes! That would help."_

)(

Subconsciously, William touched his vest pocket, assuring himself the love-note he had written her was still there. He was pleased with it, particularly considering his plan to purchase a multi-colored array of flowers for the bouquet to accompany it, to nestle the handwritten note into.

The words tucked close to his heart said…

 _As scientists, and astute observers in our world, we both understand the technical phenomenon of the visible spectrum, and yet, the innate beauty of it still captures our hearts, when we look upon it, for instance, in this bouquet of flowers, splashed and sprinkled into a parade of fun, or in a rainbow at the crystal-clear edge of a dark storm. Is a rainbow merely an optical illusion, or does the pure, white sunlight,_ perhaps akin to our love _, really bend, and thus separate, the different wavelengths into discrete bands as it flows through the heaviness of our stormy encounters with unbearable adversity? I want you to know, milady, that I best see the rich, colorful, fullness, of the spectrum of the world when I am looking at it,_ **with you** _._

Once he opened the door to the shop, the familiar jangle of the little bell atop the door and the pleasant brush of floral scents wafting over him, William's own alarm bells stiffened him before his brain had had a chance to register the woman's name. " _Madge Merton!"_ the connection landed, half his body poised to turn and run, the other half smiling and removing his hat. Politeness won out, and his mind raced while he greeted the famous toff-column writer and the shop owner. " _Coincidence?"_ he asked himself _, "Not likely,"_ came the answer _, "Such a woman as Madge Merton would have others to run such errands for her. She had to be here for a story. But how would she know I buy Julia's flowers here?"_ he wondered, suddenly feeling overly paranoid _._ Wavering between dread and some odd pride in having his love for Julia exhibited in the Toronto Daily Star's, " _Page For Women_ ," he planned on waiting for the woman to leave before making his purchase.

Of course, Madge Merton would have none of it, for her sole purpose in being in the tiny shop in the first place was to get the scoop on the detective's flower-buying habits as of late. She had already learned that he purchased Dr. Ogden flowers – usually roses – once or twice a week, and that he often included a little love note tucked into the bouquet. Sly, even before she had seen Detective Murdoch's bike pull up, she had charmed the shop owner into colluding with her, into telling her all.

Truth be told, the flower-shop owner always read the woman's stories, idolized her, and thus she knew Madge Merton had a soft spot for this particular couple. Madge Merton had been the main driving force behind the Murdoch's fame and popularity in becoming 'Toronto's Favorite Couple' in the first place, drawing attention to the storybook qualities of their romance.

"Detective," the shop owner declared, "This will be three days in a row!"

 _So handsome, his smile, mingling with that subtle edge of embarrassment, and his big, brown eyes, so warm,_ and both women each noticed their own internal interests flickering to life.

"Mrs. Jansen tells me you are her most regular customer, detective," Miss Merton said, stepping back, making room for him at the counter. "Please," she invited him forward, "I am curious to see what delightful flowers your lovely wife will be receiving today." She watched intently, listened intently, as the detective ordered two of every color of rose, and a peppering of half a dozen bright blue corn flowers to be mixed in with the floral fireworks, here and there. The result was truly beautiful, she thought, and so fun. Any woman in the world would have loved them.

Miss Merton accompanied the detective out and asked, "Do you ever regret falling for her?"

Dumbfounded by her question, he stared at her, frozen momentarily.

Miss Merton hedged, "I mean… with all this trouble that comes with, um, with… being such a… _**modern**_ woman's, um… husband?"

She wondered sometimes, if a man as smart as Detective William Murdoch appreciated how similar they were to each other, if he realized that their professions called for similar skills, such as asking questions and reading people's answers, and sneaking about to discover whatever it is people were hiding. Particularly, right now, she wondered if he, too, rummaged through people's garbage, as she had done with Dr. Ogden's from the morgue, starting back years ago. It was this specific act that had led her to this particular flower shop, and it was how she had discovered the rare and hidden passions of this man, being the only other human on Earth, other than Dr. Ogden herself, to have read his poetic love notes to his soulmate. Madge Merton found a moment, standing there, looking into the detective's gorgeous eyes, to remember something her own past love had once told her, _that a soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul, to do the emotional work of self-discovery, of awakening…"_

Standing before the formidable woman, instinctively, William was flung towards outrage, but then he saw her ploy for what it was, for he knew through her writings that Madge Merton understood his and Julia's love, he knew that she knew that he would passionately refute such a claim as regretting marrying Julia. Making himself breathe, he felt a ray of hope with her given opportunity. And in that moment, his wariness switched to trust, and William looked inside of himself instead of out. And he remembered the first time he had ever seen Dr. Julia Ogden, _March 12_ _th_ _, young Clayton Bowles hanging up in a tree…_ With a profound _'click'_ he felt the mysterious touch of this one magnificent moment in his life, this one magnificent woman, flare again, in the core of his heart, like when a match strikes, and he remembered that this morning, and that, today, right at this very moment in time, albeit unseen, Julia was wearing _**the locket**_ – the one that had taught him about the secrets of the ' _click._ '. He felt the glow expand in his chest…

Madge Merton caught a glimpse of it, becoming thoroughly enchanted.

The moment waxing magical, William Murdoch told her, his eyes looking off in the distance, his words slow, with a sense of awe as he spoke them, remembering, feeling, the emotions of the memory intensely, "Since the first moment I laid eyes on her, I knew, I knew she was my everything. What I didn't know, couldn't possibly even imagine back then, was how very, very much, how astoundingly, amazingly wonderful, that _**EVERYTHING**_ would be."

" _Wow_ ," Miss Merton's mind tried to fathom the strength of it, basked in the way it gave her chills. Theirs was quite a love, she was right, had always been right, about this couple…

Abruptly, William's eyes grounded, meeting Madge Merton's eyes head-on. He wrinkled up a corner of his mouth.

She found it wholly endearing.

"I must be off, I'm afraid," he gestured towards his bicycle.

"Of course," she replied, stepping aside.

Detective Murdoch tipped his hat, gave her a, "Good Day, Miss Merton," tucked his bouquet into a pouch fixed to the back of the bicycle and mounted up.

"Good day, Detective," she said, waving her goodbye.

)(

Taking advantage of the lull in postmortems, Julia sat at her desk and prepared for tonight's lecture for her class. Again, the seemingly never-stopping phone rang. _It would be another reporter, wanting to ask her more obnoxious questions…_

Julia glared at the phone, an internal battle ensuing. " _It could be William… or it could be the University with some results from the samples I sent them…"_

"City Morgue," she answered, picking up the infernal device, refusing to give away to the caller that it was _SHE_ who had answered the phone. Julia's mouth hung opened, ready to barrel off her speech to the arrogant reporter on the other end of the phone about the importance of leaving the line free for emergencies when she heard the woman say…

"Ruby Rosevear, don't you remember me, from the **Murdoch Appreciation Society** …"

 _The whole memory was so sweet, a whole group of people appreciating William's astounding talents, how remarkable he was. It had been the first time she really had gotten an inkling that she wasn't the only one who thought so._ Julia remembered this particular young woman. She was the outspoken one, the one who let all the world know how attractive she found William to be – admiring his detective skills, " _ **and the rest**_ …" the one who had grabbed his arm for the photograph that had ended up on the front page a few years ago now.

Basically, much of the phone call consisted of Miss Rosevear gushing over William's invention of using UV photography to see something that, otherwise, could not be observed. The young woman was writing a story for the Toronto Gazette and asked if she could come by and see what the injury looked like on the victim in regular light… and, "maybe get a photo." Julia agreed, and added that she would get the young aspiring reporter a photo of the same area that she and William had taken at the same time, with a regular camera lens, suggesting that, "Perhaps it would be best to publish that comparison photograph because the body has decomposed even more since then." Unable to help herself, Julia became excited about all this William-adoring attention. She, too, found herself gushing about how brilliant a man William was, and the marvels of her husband's latest innovative invention, adding, "You know, it will likely help physicians all over the world, as well forensic scientists in solving crimes. Even social workers, for instance, being able to see old bruises may provide evidence of a child being beaten regularly, or even provide bite marks from a rapist!"

Julia didn't notice, but after hanging up the phone, she was pleasantly humming when she went back to work.

)(

His cheese, and apple, and slices of carrots laid out on his desk in front of him, _thanks to Eloise quickly handing them off to him this morning as he rushed out the door to leave with Julia_ – all of the food untouched thus far, William sighed and put down the latest, awful, newspaper story he had finally had time to read. The burden felt huge. He tried to shake it off, taking a bite of cheese, telling himself to breathe, that things would be better tomorrow. Flashes played in his imagination of the crazed, but optimistic, scene earlier, when the mob of reporters had all showed up to get copies of his drawing of the victim's bruise, and they were even enthusiastic and competitive about getting a hold of copies of the two original photographs themselves – the one taken in regular lighting of the victim's broken leg, the other in the ultra-violet part of the spectrum, revealing the previously hidden clue.

Even so, he found himself staring down at the apple, his mind slamming him with quotes from today's castigating headlines, "Murdoch Bungles Body-Farm Dumper Case," and "Detective Outsmarted: Botches Hopes of Catching the Body-Farm Dumper," and then, "Body-Farm Dumper Gets Best of Murdoch." It was a struggle, not to take it personally… " _Better angels, indeed,_ " he scoffed at himself. He broke off a piece from a carrot slice and popped it into his mouth. The little angel on his right shoulder tried to win over the little devil on his left, seeming to get his ear, " _They seemed to be excited about helping,_ " it reminded. A big sigh filled the air around him, " _It'll be better tomorrow_."

(

That was when Julia came to him with her gift of a warm lunch from their old hotel – "One of their favorites, beef stroganoff!"

She sensed it immediately, his hesitation in thanking her. _William seemed uncomfortable_.

"Don't you like it?" she asked… after he had stood up from his desk to kiss her hello, and then help unpack the toasty warm bundle of treats and place the various containers out, with her, on his worktable, and after he had specifically said how thoughtful the gesture was.

William's stomach churned, his upset growing. _There was no point in continuing to try to hide it from her, she knew him too well… She had already seen_ , so he explained, after a sigh, and while rubbing his forehead, "It's… um, it's just that it's Friday, and we're Catholic…"

Wham, " _ouch_ ," she felt the land of the punch of it in her gut! _She had failed on yet another front to be a good wife for him_. Unlike her to be overly sensitive, to be so quick to tears, Julia felt the burning swelling begin in her eyes. _Admittedly, she still felt… so vulnerable, about not being able to have a child… and… well, it had only been last night, after all, all that fighting, and crying…_

William rushed, slipped his fingers under her jaw, lifted her face to look him in the eye, so she could see the truth of it, as he reassured her, "Julia, it was such a _**sweet**_ , _**sweet**_ thing to do for me… To do this, because, because you knew I was feeling down, about the stories in the papers today, and you, you wanted to cheer me up, I'm sure… hmm?" he coaxed her.

Her eyes were stunning, glossy, as they filled with tears, tears he sensed he was curbing, leaving such beautiful pools in her eyes, magnetic, her beauty, and he felt his love for her surge so that it hurt in his chest. Julia nodded, and he kissed her cheek, paused so his voice snuck into her ear, "Julia, it is a wonderful feeling to know that there is someone as lovely as you… who is out there in the world, thinking of me, worrying about me, someone dedicated and devoted to caring, so well, for me."

Her nod seemed more persuaded now, and he sighed with the relief of it, her feeling his smile against her cheek.

William pulled back a little, adding, "And this meal is perfect…" his eyes toured the myriad containers. "We can save the stroganoff for lunch tomorrow. It'll be delicious, and that way William Jr. can even try some. We can keep it in the morgue, in the cold room. I'll pick it up there before I head home on my bicycle," he suggested, then becoming animated, he added, "Before we meet up later, remember, after your class, we're meeting at the Transportation Exhibition?" his tone suddenly cheerier remembering their planned outing.

"Yes," her smile was sincere as she appeared to lighten.

He asked, his attention turning back to the food, the vast display dwarfing his little pile of carrots and cheese at his desk, then meeting her eyes again to open his eyes wide, playful and excited, "Did they give us that yummy garlic toast, and the vegetables, and the potatoes?" he hoped.

"And desert, William. We've got a delicious desert…" she hurried to reply, knowing he would be thrilled with his favorite desert, Coconut Cream Pie. The rise in her spirits such a contrast to just seconds before, made her question it, and she remembered her mistake, and she drooped. "I'm sorry I forgot," she offered. There was the slightest hint of a pout.

He pulled her in to kiss her. It was a good, long, delicious kiss. _Quite convincing – tingly so, leaving no doubt… He adored her._

 _(_

Constables Crabtree and Higgins had come in together after walking their rounds, intentionally passing one of their favorite places – the little place that makes banana splits! They sat at their desks, George looking through his messages, Higgins pulling out his lunch.

George held out one of the messages and commented, "One of the reporters already called us with an idea about what made the bruise."

"That was quick," Henry responded, not looking up. Amazing, even after the banana split, he was still hungry.

"Suggests it's from a machine used at slaughterhouses," George said. He put the note down and pulled out his own lunch. "Now, Detective and Murdoch and I know quite a lot about the machinery used in slaughterhouses…"

Henry groaned and rolled his eyes, sarcastically interrupting, "Yes, yes. I know George, because you and he went together undercover to work at slaughterhouses in Chicago. I know. I know." Under his breath he added, "And you have been bragging about it ever since."

"I heard that Henry," George complained about the insult, "I'll have you know, we both almost died on that case, multiple tim…

They hadn't even noticed the young woman approach, but her sudden gleeful gasp drew their attention. Ruby Rosevear…

 _George was sure he recognized her…_

Ruby Rosevear exclaimed, bouncing in place with her happiness about it, "Oh, they're kissing!"

Both constables jumped to catch whatever she was looking at – in the detective's office, instincts faster than the brain, for they both already knew what they would see. It was rare, that the detective allowed anyone to see the passion between himself and the doctor, but it was not unprecedented.

It was Henry who responded first, minimizing it. "Oh, they do that all the time," he said.

"They do not, Henry," George corrected, giving Henry the evil eye. Turning to Miss Rosevear, he explained, "The detective is quite a modest man, really… buttoned-up, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yes," Miss Rosevear responded, her eyes remaining glued to the couple, "Still waters run quite deep."

Suddenly realizing that they had been lured into a more personal conversation than they should be engaging in, George said, "And, I apologize, I am sure we've met, but I can't…"

"Oh yes," the young, and noticeably attractive, woman interrupted, finally looking at George as she spoke to him, "I was here with some of the other members of the Murdoch Appreciation Society.' Her eyes bugged out, the thrill of it all more than she could contain, "I was even in your jail, Constable. It was Constable Crabtree, right?" she asked.

George's expression showed his recognition, "Yes, of course. It was Ruby, wasn't it?"

 _George remembered from back then, from right after the detective and the doctor had married, that this young woman had, very blatantly, flirted with Detective Murdoch. It had always reminded him of Dr. Ogden's younger sister, who had behaved in much the same way with him, and who interestingly was also named Ruby. He also noted to himself that there was another thing these two Rubys had in common – how good-looking they each were._

Miss Rosevear stood up taller, "Miss Ruby Rosevear, constables. I'm working on a story for the Gazette…"

 _In his head, George rolled his eyes, "What is it with me and lady reporters," he admonished himself once more for ever being enchanted with Miss Cherry._

Abruptly realizing that he had missed some of what Miss Rosevear was saying, George rushed to pay attention and catch up.

"…meeting with the doctor. I thought I'd check over here, um, knowing she and Detective Murdoch are married." Ruby tried not to show her ulterior motive, her crush on the detective still quite strong. "Perhaps it would be best if I wait over at the mor…"

Suddenly, Ruby Rosevear's jaw dropped, and her eyes gaped, and she sucked in some air, and covered her mouth with her delight and surprise. "He's giving her flowers!" she nearly shrieked it.

The three of them watched on through the glass as Dr. Ogden took the bouquet from her husband and dipped her face close to the puffy bundle of flowers to inhale the smell of the large bunch of plush and colorful flowers…

(

"Oh, William! They're like confetti! They're beautiful," she exclaimed, her heart skipping a beat upon seeing his note nestled in the petals. Julia then took a deep breath, savoring the pleasant feelings, and held the bouquet out to the side to keep it safe as she stepped into his arms. "Thank you," she whispered to him, then kissed him on the cheek.

"It does feel good," she added, lifting out his note, "Like you said earlier, knowing that there's someone in the world that loves me as much as you do…"

(

Out in bull pen, George and Miss Rosevear were nearly giddy, sharing excited glances at each other with their excitement about the detective's gift. Higgins found the whole show quite entertaining, unsure which part was best, these two watching the couple, or what was happening in the detective's office, though that was pretty juicy too.

"Look, he wrote her a lovenote!" Miss Rosevear declared.

They watched as Detective Murdoch stopped his wife from opening it, gently placing his hand over hers as she started to lift the back of the small envelope. The detective's back was to them, but they could see Dr. Ogden's face. _My goodness, she was truly beautiful_. She smiled, such a knowing and compassionate look she gave the man she loved. Then she tucked the note away in her pocket.

George made the inference, suggesting, "He must have asked her to read it when she was alone. Perhaps… he is too shy, maybe he gets embarrassed?"

"I'll bet it's beautiful," Ruby sounded dreamy and far off with her longing. She wished with all her heart that a man _like that_ loved her _like that_.

The couple went back to dishing out the meal, and talking, and eating. The others agreed that it appeared that the show was over. Miss Rosevear asked Constable Crabtree to let the doctor know she would be over at the morgue waiting, once the couple was finished with their lunch.

George suddenly regretted having the pretty woman go, saying, "It was quite nice seeing you again. Um, if there's anything I can do to help, er, um with your story…"

"There very well may be, Constable," she tilted her head to flirt…

 _Message received._

"…I have the impression that you know Detective Murdoch best of all," Miss Rosevear explained. She nodded her head at him awkwardly, almost offering him her hand to kiss. And then felt embarrassed about it and quickly turned to go. But, unexpectedly she stopped, turned back. "You can call me Ruby," she said.

 _Oh how George wished Henry wasn't watching. He was sure he blushed_. He even needed to clear his throat, "George… You can call me George," he said.

"Well, good day, for now, George," Ruby said.

"Good day, Ruby," George made sure to say, giving her his most charming nod and his quirky little smile.

The very second the stationhouse door closed behind the aspiring young reporter, Higgins gawked at George.

"Don't say anything, Henry," George warned.

)(

Later that evening, William and Julia were returning home from the Transportation Science Exhibit, sitting together inside the carriage of the cab. The trip back to their house was a relatively long one, and, at first, their conversation had been lively. But, eventually, it quieted down, and their individual thoughts drifted through the various events of each of their days. A sigh from William alerted her. As she observed him, off on her periphery, his telling rub of his forehead made his stressed state definite. " _He's back to the case_ ," she told herself in her head, knowing her husband well.

Julia ventured to cheer him up, suggesting, "You know, William, the press may NOT turn out to be the big, bad wolf that we had thought they were…" she slid closer, "Perhaps, in reality, it's just a _**paper**_ tiger, after all," she giggled at her own pun. "Get it, William?" she gleamed and squeezed him closer, "News _ **papers**_ … and a _**paper**_ tiger… one that can't really hurt you because it's made out of paper?" she made it even worse by explaining her own joke, gazing into his eyes, waiting for him to love her.

Thoroughly enamored, he yielded, and laughed with her.

She added, _her smile delighting him_ , "And now the reporters are bending over backwards to help…" Julia reached over and cupped his cheek. The gesture so caring. The charge, the change between them, in an instant, took her breath, stole her eyes away into his, pulled at her with a stunning magnitude…

It had happened so quickly, thus making it harder to control… William suddenly wanted to make love – very, very urgently, the screaming in his groin outright distracting. Oh, but so magnificent, so delicious, that tight, strong, invigorated sensation down there, throbbing in his trousers. _"Could we… here? Is there enough time – we've… been quick before, left our clothes on. She could sit in my lap…"_ The fantasy, dizzying in its strength, _somehow Julia not having anything on under her skirt, her supple, silky-soft thighs hugging around his hips, and so… warm, and so perfectly creamy, and surrounding, as he began to make love to her…_ it was so close, so enticing, it caused a subtle _buck_ in him, his groin already on fire, overpowered by the need to pump. " _Easy William_ ," he warned himself, his inner conflict, his desire, so obviously unmasked. William smiled at her – just a little…

" _Embarrassed?_ " she wondered, Julia herself feeling the flames of her insides calling, working to slowly back herself out of her own unanticipated arousal.

William had surprised himself, was astounded that he seemed to be _actually considering_ doing this, reasoning the final piece out, " _The driver!"_ the thought hit with a wave of panic, " _Would the driver feel our motion, up there, out there?_ " Yet, all the time knowing that he, William Henry Murdoch, would _never_ dare to do such a thing.

Gaining the upper hand, loving every moment of it, Julia's voice took on a teasing air as she asked him point blank, "William, are you thinking of having sex?

 _Oh my God, how he blushed!_

Such satisfaction with her shock, "You are," she breathed at him, sliding closer and squeezing his arm.

William rolled his eyes. _How could this constantly keep happening to him? Since when was he such an open book?_

 _Adorable_ …

The way he coped with the pressure, exhaling the smothering air out through his pursed lips, before he admitted it with a barely decipherable nod.

"Men," she teased him, shaking her head, "Do you think of sex absolutely all the time?"

"More than I used to," he answered, with his loveable 'admitting it' wrinkle at the corner of his mouth.

Julia simply nodded her acknowledgement of his confession, her expression dazed, knowing it would make him squirm more, but _mm-mm-mm_ , how her womb tugged at her.

William reached up and rubbed at his forehead while he elaborated uncomfortably, "I guess that's one way you haven't affected me for the better."

A cocky smile slipped onto Julia's face, worrying him. "Oh, William," her voice confident and knowing, "most women would see it as for the better," she giggled with her teasing, and the amazing truth of it. She practically crawled in his lap wanting to be closer to him and added, "Too bad they'll never know how good it could be," she gloated.

 _Deflect_ , William thought of a way to deflect this feeling of being under her microscope. But, too, he did wonder what she thought about this. He asked her, "Julia," the question drawing her eyes to his, "Do you think it's not like it is with us with everyone?"

Her reply came so quickly he was certain she had thought about this before. "I doubt it," she answered simply. With that resolved, she tucked her arm in his, rested her head down on his big shoulder, and they grew quiet, each reflecting, lulled pleasantly by the rocking and swaying of the carriage.

Tomorrow was Saturday. Things were looking up. William's mind let her words mingle with the thoughts in his head, " _Perhaps, Just a_ Paper _Tiger, after all."_ He pulled a bit closer, kissed her hair, took in the smell of her, cherishing her into his marrow. It was there, though, nagging, bugging him, just below the surface, an uneasiness, as yet unnamed.

An image flashed by, so quickly in his mind that he barely recorded it, of a tiger, huge and fierce, teeth bared, long claws ready, about to attack. He didn't need to push it away, it was gone so fast. But William Murdoch was curious by nature, and so he called it up, puzzled. " _Was it because Julia had just mentioned tigers?_ " the question came and went.

 _Wham_ , it lasted longer this time, the intrusive image of the tiger pouncing, this time taking him deeper into the tale it had to tell. " _The tiger was after Julia!_ " he realized with a fright. " _I had pulled it off of her, drawn it away from her, but now… now that it's not hunting me, it will go back to stalking HER!"_ he grasped his concerns, for _he_ had taken the pressure from the press the last few days, him, and his handling of the case. It had spared her the press' badgering, there had been virtually no reporters paying attention to whether or not they used contraception, or the reasons for their need to adopt instead of have their own child, and such. And now, now, if he had solved HIS problems with the "tiger," well, it would mean…

From seemingly out of nowhere, the old story, _or was it a fable_ , from his childhood whispered its secret premonition, _the brave hero will be confronted with a choice between two doors, behind one there is the Lady, the one matched perfectly for him, behind the other door, there is a man-eating tiger._ William imagined himself facing the two humungous wooden doors, imagined himself facing the choice between the Lady, or the Tiger… He took a deep breath, the challenge of the dilemma registering, for sometimes, it seemed, in order to save the one that you love, that in order to have the one you want, more than anything in the world, to have her with you, you have to deal with the other, you must engage in battle with the threat. He knew he would always choose the Lady, his Lady, the one for him in every way, if he could. He honestly felt he had no choice in the matter, it being up to destiny, or fate, that, for him, it was Julia, it was _always_ Julia, it _had always been_ Julia, _it would always be Julia_ , but… It was in this moment that he became keenly aware of a profoundly driving instinct blazing inside of him, an instinct that lured him, wildly, primally, beyond his control, to fight, to fight with every last breath he had, with his every last drop of his reddest blood, to fight to make the world a _safe place_ for _HER_. And so, in the end, _**must he not face the tiger to save her… paper or not?**_ Unaware of it, William reached up again, and rubbed his brow.

" _Hold her closer, hold her closer, love her with everything you have_ ," his soul rustled the resonant message, so softly, to him, brought him out of his head, back into the cab, sitting on the seat, next to his love. " _She is a treasure, your treasure, and you are hers. Feel her warmth against you. Love her, love her, and let her love you, for every moment is precious."_

)) ((


	7. 7: Becoming LionheartedT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 7: Becoming Lionhearted

"Whoa," Charlie Masters brought his horse to a halt near the fence line of the Murdoch's Body Farm. Grateful for the steed, his voice held a calm and reassuring tone despite his intense adrenalin rush. _Charlie Masters didn't become the best reporter in Toronto by avoiding risks,_ he had reasoned with himself back when he dreamed up this plan. He secured his horse to a sturdy tree, in the blackness, part of the plan being to do this on a new moon, when the night would be darkest. Mr. Masters secured the feed bag over the horse's nose, to keep him quiet, unstrapped his scarecrow-like "body" from the back of the saddle, and heaved the lightweight "corpse" up over his shoulder. _Last but not least, the shovel_.

Stealthy, sneaky, Charlie Masters slinked closer to his planned point of access. He almost giggled, his plan was so brilliant… prove Murdoch's Body Farm is dangerous by dumping another body there, secretly, himself. This "victim" had a rather insulting note pinned on his chest, letting Murdoch know his goose was cooked. Charlie would get the scoop, because he would be the one who knew that there had been another body dump. He would insist on a public inspection, claiming he had been watching over the body farm at night trying to catch the "Body-Dumper" murderer for his story, and he believed he had spied someone moving about on the Murdoch's property – even heard digging.

" _Fortunately, this fake body isn't heavy,_ " he thought to himself arriving at the Murdoch's fence. He tossed the shovel over to the other side, then flung the fake body over too. The moment he placed a hand on the top rail, though, that's when…

 _ **ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!**_ The high-pitched buzzing sound actually made him dizzy with the agony of it, and _"Something wet! "Oh my God, I'm bleeding… Is this blood?!"_ he panicked. _And those lights, all over, bright, so bright._

Masters jumped back, rushing to check himself for injuries, it just starting to register that _the liquid felt cold, couldn't be his blood… had to be something else_. And then it hit him hard – _**Murdoch had set-up a trap, and he and fallen right into it!**_

First, just " _SNAP!_ " Then an odd _"zipping"_ sound, from all around. Such terror! _The ground was moving!_ Master's screamed, like a little girl, he screamed, as gravity shifted under him, the ground reaching up, engulfing him completely, flinging him up in the air. He scrambled wildly at the edges… _**A NET!**_ He'd been caught in a net… He was hanging, trapped, captured, _CAUGHT_ , in a net dangling from a tree, _like a sitting duck! This was a disaster, a complete disaster!_

) (

It was first thing in the morning, on SATURDAY – truly the best day of the week for them… not a work day, no outside obligations, house to themselves because Eloise and Claire-Marie had the day off. On this particular Saturday morning, William was sleepy, Julia, she was feeling quite… lusty.

"Nooo," his scratchy voice cracked and rumbled, eyes remaining closed, "Saturday. Sleep more."

Julia giggled, thinking _William had finally made the transition to Caveman_. Deciding to respond in kind, she grunted, "Baby not know Saturday…" then slid her warm, sultry body up along his to dangle her lips close to his ear and seduce, "Its sleep, or me, detective."

He opened one eye. She giggled. "Sleep, and then you," he bargained.

Accepting the challenge, Julia made her first move. She rose up onto her knees and lifted her nightgown over her head, making sure to shift the mattress about somewhat wildly as she did so, and then she intentionally draped the fabric enticingly over his chest and the more vulnerable aspect of his neck before she tossed it to the floor.

He resisted, "I can't see you since I'm sleeping."

"Oh, but husband, eyes are not the only means to arouse a man," she said, unbuttoning his pajama top, then admiring the scrumptious ups and downs of him, first with her fingers, then with her mouth, gently sucking and kissing, as her fingers moved down over his firm stomach, and she moaned with the delight of the feel of him. Then coming closer, moving over him from her side and rubbing her warm, curvy, plush body on his solid, well-contoured one, the supple inside of her thigh encountered the eager bulge of him. His face said he was ignoring her, _but oh, his body_ , his body had tightened and hardened, and lower down, it reached fervently for her…

Julia's velvety hand snuck into his pajama bottoms.

He fought his instinct to moan.

Masterfully, she squeezed, and stroked and tortured him, her reward was beyond palpable, William's body reacting strongly, his moan totally erupting her own insides with want for him.

"So… me then," she taunted.

He reached for her body, where she was lying on her side next to him, toured his hand down the deep dip of her at her waist, so huge the slope up her hips, outright groping as he found her backside, and he reveled in the feel of her moldable buttocks, surrendering to him, squishing and filling between his rigid fingers, soft and lush.

Wanting more of her, _much more,_ _ **all**_ _of her,_ he scooched and wriggled to tuck underneath her while his hands decisively took hold of her by the hips and he guided her, bringing her up over him to straddle him. Julia was in charge, and she set the tempo, controlled the force of their union, rocking them both closer and closer to complete abandon…

)

A few hours later, William sleeping in, Julia stood at the stove, intermittently humming and talking to their now nearly two-year old son. The little one sat in his highchair at the table, mushing and chewing, somewhat, on his banana slices. Catching herself, Julia warned herself to pay attention, as she placed the bread in the toaster and then laid it over the flames. She had already gotten a reputation for burning the toast, and she had every intention of breaking the pattern from now on. Particularly since she had heard William's footsteps upstairs and she knew he would be down soon. _She swore, the man deliberately flirted with her so she would burn the toast…_

Although she knew he was up and about, Julia was still surprised when William appeared in the kitchen. She heard him behind her. Cheery, his voice, _she so loved it when this man was happy_ , as he greeted their son. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of him leaning over to kiss his "Little Man's" curly head, and then play, his voice lively and enthusiastic, with the baby for a moment. _Oh my_ , she noticed in her glances, so instantly her womb zapping tight with the charge of seeing it, _he wore only his pajama bottoms_. " _Remember the toast, Julia. Remember the toast_ ," she coached herself with the guiding mantra.

 _Mmm_ , the gravitational force of his approach, coming up from behind her, pulling and spinning at her to an astounding torque before he had even arrived, before he had even made contact. _And when he did_ , his body feeling so strong, and so big compared to hers, his breath on her neck, and then, tender, his fingers shifting her hair out of his way. "Good morning," his only warning before his hands moved in around her sides and he hungrily explored her belly and her hip bones, and he pressed in behind her, so solid, and his lips and breath teased her ear and nuzzled her neck.

She pretended to ignore him – glanced at the toast.

William's inhale first, before he spoke again, "I woke up and you weren't there. I was disappointed." _Mmm_ , more succulent kisses to her neck.

 _Zing_ , the memory hit, and it hit hard – of their first kiss, William being " _disappointed"_ about there not being any green fairies, of all things. And Julia just couldn't withstand it back then, unbearable – waiting anymore, and so she had touched him, in such an undeniably romantic way, sliding her fingers into his hair. And she had seen it then, in those gorgeous eyes of his, she knew it down in her bones that _she had him_ , that she had _always_ had him, and she just knew it, beyond a doubt, _William Murdoch loved her_. And her heart had jumped for joy, making her breathless, making her boldly crazy enough to move closer, drown in his scent, tilt… She had told him, then, exactly what she would tell him now, knowing the words would resound vibrantly in his heart as much, as they would in hers, striking just the right chord…

"Disappointed, William? We can't have that," she whispered, magnifying the impact of it, and Julia reached back to find his head as he stood and breathed behind her, to scratch, _so lusciously_ , her fingers into his hair. His hands explored the curves of her, and his sharp exhale signaled his own euphoric spin, and she felt the pull of lust surge strong – strong enough that her knees threatened to give way as her womb, her core, wrenched with wanting him, stealing away blood from her extremities and her brain. "William… she wriggled in a weak attempt to stop him. The baby's right there."

"He's too young to know any more than that his Mommy and hid Daddy love each other…" his kisses teased with a sharp nibble, "a lot," William reasoned. His seductions grew, tugging and twisting her womb with their tempting rugged desire, and she felt it, distinctly with a captivating poke, he had become robustly aroused, and it practically floored her, and she felt the drop, the delightful dizziness stealing her. Then, from somewhere inside her head the warning came – _the toast! She had to save the toast!_

It was at that very moment that the doorbell rang, stopping their escalating passion. William raised an eyebrow at her. She reached for the toast.

"George?" he suggested. "He and Higgins have been in charge of chasing down all the zany ideas from the public about what made our victim's bruise," he hesitated there, his brain taking the extra step of quelling his optimism, despite the Saturday morning oddity of being interrupted at home. "I think I should get it. You're um…" his eyes traveled down her curvy body, only minimally masked by her thin, plain white nightgown, William keenly aware _the fabric of which was so fine that,_ _when the light was placed just right behind her, her secretly revealed silhouette had, on more than one occasion, nearly brought him to his knees._ Adding to that there was her creamy cleavage, heaving so invitingly up and down with her rushed breaths – for it appeared he had undone quite a few of her buttons, and it seemed William was quite pleased with the results of his ravaging.

"You may need to cover up," he advised, clearing his throat.

 _Her voice sounded far off, requiring his focus to decipher it_ , "George has seen me in a lot less, you know."

 _Her tone was so very cocky_ , it sent a thunder bolt down a direct path to his groin, _even tighter now, his pajamas._ He remembered the instances to which she referred, as if being hit by a memory wave _, Julia wearing not much more than a Christmas bow, and George right there next to him… And then, at the nudist colony, when she had saved George's life, this remarkable woman, so bold, in so many ways, naked, and gorgeous, and she had whacked the killer on the head with a shovel after sneaking up behind the culprit. And she was so, so, magnificent. And George had seen_ _ **her**_ _, and the Inspector had seen_ _ **her**_ _, and he had…_ _ **Oh my God, he had definitely seen HER**_ _. And she was even more beautiful than he had ever dreamed of._ Instantly, William felt the surge of the rampage of emotions all over again, conflicting, and tickling, and twitching his insides.

Their eyes met and Julia giggled with the look of him. _So indescribable, his expression_. " _Fear? Anger? Definitely not shame,"_ she decided… " _Perhaps a manly sense of pride – and lust?_ " she wondered.

Attempting to explain, he stumbled, "Any human male… would have a… a very strong urge to… to touch, Julia. The feeling swoops over you, down to… well, through your whole body…"

Julia stepped in closer to him again, pressed closer to him.

"It's not always something a man feels he can control," William disclosed, wrinkling a corner of his mouth at her, his face full of charm.

The doorbell rang a second time, interrupting.

"No?" she asked, eyebrow up. Then her delightful giggle.

William swallowed with the pressure of it. "No," he answered simply.

She stepped back, and said, staring down at him, "Perhaps William, it is _**you**_ who needs to cover up."

William cleared his throat and turned away. Disappointing really, that she didn't get to see his blush.

It was William who went to the front door, after the third ring. It turned out that it was _**not**_ George, after all.

)

Believing his… _alertness_ had lessened sufficiently to go unnoticed, William swung the front door opened with the usual, "What have you Geor..."

Louise Cherry, eyes widened, and dropping, downward... _down further, (ahem), all the way_ _ **down**_ , soaking in the look of his bare and impressive _chest, and those well-muscled arms, and that exquisitely rippled stomach…_ stood on their welcome mat, a gaggle of other reporters gawking at her success thus far, from the sidewalk, quite a way back on the _other side_ of the Murdoch's front gate, the Constabulary-established boundary they could not cross.

Both surprised, a pause ensued, one that was undeniably uncomfortable, before Miss Cherry spoke up abruptly, her own jolt shoving her forward with impetus. "I'm afraid George is not accompanying me today, um…" unable to wholly stop herself, she dropped her eyes down to savor the sight of the man once more, "Um…" her eyes back to his, "unlike at our lovely dinner, detective..." Her smile, thin and tight, trying to act as if everything were normal. _She considered adding a part about their having discussed batteries that evening, but could remember no more than that it was terribly boring, so decided against it._

Finding words, _desperately_ working to find words, _so terribly bothered by his state of undress_ , William stammered, "Err… Miss, uh, Miss Cherry, whatever are y..."

The pushy woman reached up and started to undo her hat pins, preparing for when she would be invited in, "I'm here to speak with your wife, actually, um, privately." Despite herself, despite having had practiced, numerous times, encountering this exact initial hurdle at their front door, Miss Cherry faltered, stuttering out her explanation for being so brash as to march up and ring the Murdoch's front doorbell… on a Saturday morning. "Well, you see… I, well, err, it's that I… Well, to be honest, detective…"

 _And every bone in William's body was screaming at him that she was likely being far from honest…_

"You see, I, um, I figured that, because we are friends, um, from George…" that tight smile again _, the strange urge to curtsey_ , "and my having been a guest in your home previously, so, err, the unannounced visit, especially considering the situation... um with my upcoming story..." she pressed.

Seeing no way out of this, and not knowing whether or not Miss Cherry had already discussed this " _upcoming story_ " with Julia, William decided to err on the side of being polite, _which was pretty much a default mode with William Murdoch anyway, especially when push came to shove, which it certainly was doing here, Miss Cherry stepping_ _ **too close**_ _and removing her hat_. He stepped back from the doorway and welcomed her in, taking the lady-reporter into the living room. "Have a seat, please Miss Cherry. I'll… I will go get my wife."

William attempted to exit the living room nonchalantly, once out of her sight, barreling up the stairs. Clearly, he needed to put on a robe, and to bring Julia hers.

)

Dr. Julia Ogden had _most_ _certainly_ _ **not**_ previously discussed Miss Cherry's horrid upcoming story with the ambitious and intrusive reporter. Further, she would surely NOT be inviting the woman into their home again anytime soon.

William cringed as his wife marched back into the kitchen after practically bodily throwing Louise Cherry out on her posterior end, Julia's arms pumping wildly at her sides as they did when she was furious…

William hoped upon hope that she wasn't this mad _AT HIM_ …

Her eyes fiery, and with an air of steam wafting up from under her flowy curls, she huffed as she plopped herself down into her seat at the kitchen table. "Great," she complained, "Now my eggs are cold, too."

Immediately he regretted it, saying it, as if to lighten her mood, "At least the toast's not burnt," her glare stabbing him into a wide-eyed state of immobilized panic.

Unable to fully control herself, Julia placed her fork down and turned directly to him. _Probably his deer-in-the-headlights look,_ but, after an attempt, her mouth opening, taking a big breath to begin her tirade, she closed it again and looked back down at her plate. " _Take a deep breath, Julia_ ," her inner-voice coached.

Her eyes met his again, her voice's squeak triggering his usual response, _dread and astounding love, oddly somehow, the love always winning out_. "That woman has some nerve, William! How dare she? Really!" Julia shook her head vigorously with the disbelief of it. She stopped herself again, swallowed, took another breath. _She would try again, but already she knew that telling him what the woman had accused her of, what the woman planned to write – in the most well-read newspaper in Toronto…_

There was a burning at the back of her eyes. _Whoa, might she cry?_

Julia's jaw clenched tight. It took everything she had not to slam the table, her eyes instinctively drifting over to her other side, to remind herself about William Jr. sitting right there, innocent, sweet, in his high chair.

Sounding much calmer, she inhaled deeply once more and said, "Miss Cherry stopped by to give me a chance to officially comment on her upcoming story in which she…" This halt required that she blow out some of the pressure built up inside of her, exhaling a stream of hot air through pursed lips before she continued, "In which she will suggest some truly horrendous things about me." Julia found she needed to look away from him, the compassion in his big, brown eyes rendering her weaker, although she was grateful for it. She re-lifted her fork, poked at her food. "Miss Cherry believes that I have been using contraceptives, specifically a diaphragm, without you knowing," she swallowed again, "with the intent to deceive you about my lying about being sterile… so I could keep working." Fork down again, she stared down at the plate and added, "She had every intention of ' **telling' on me,** " the squeak was back, "demanding to talk to you before she would leave."

 _My God, her eyes are beautiful_ , the thought dashed away in his head, as she returned to look at him once more. "I think I made it worse," she confided, a subtle sadness in her expression, accepting the mistake, "My refusal to let her talk to you…"

He nodded, "Gave her more suspicion that she was right."

 _Phew_ , she blew out more pressure, "Yes, yes, I believe so," she wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him, admitting it.

William reached up and rubbed his brow. "Those really are dastardly accusations," he agreed. He reached over and cupped her face.

 _Amazing_ , a part of her marveled, _she felt better_. _He loved her. It didn't matter what this dreadful reporter-woman said, or thought, or wrote… He definitely loved her._

She nodded, changed the subject, "You were thinking we'd ride our bikes to the park?" she asked him, finally taking a forkful of her breakfast.

) (

Louise Cherry left the Murdoch's reeling in her head about Julia Ogden's outburst. " _Me thinks she doth protest too much_ ," her brain offered up, fueling her fire, her own observation serving as even further proof that her insinuations were correct. Now she was definitely going to run the story, and she planned to use the Shakespeare quote as her hook in the title, too.

) (

After William and Julia discussed William's intentions of using their hidden passageways and the secret tunnel to covertly get themselves and their picnic gear out of their house, without being spotted by the reporters at their front gate, they decided against the plan. They would likely still be able to get out to their bicycles through the backyard being unseen – for William already had them waiting out at the camouflaged water-well. This water-well was, in actuality, the endpoint of the secret tunnel, and it was located just within the edge of the woods bordering their backyard. He had snuck the bikes out there last night, right before he went to bed, benefitting from the darkness provided by last night's new moon, despite it being such a crystal-clear night.

The parents had agreed that William Jr. was too young to keep such a big, juicy secret as that their house had, within its walls, secret passages, particularly in light of how very hard William had worked to keep them exactly that – _**secret**_. Julia reminded him about all the planning and conniving and work he had put into this special, almost magical, detail about their magnificent house… He had managed to keep the passageways' and tunnel's very existence _**OFF**_ of the architectural plans that the contractor used and filed with the city of Toronto, and he had made sure the workers were interspersed throughout the project, so as not to be able to grasp the full meaning of, what was to some an abnormal number of oddly shaped and located closets, and what were to others mere walls – walls that William had had to build _**himself**_ , at odd hours, when no one else around. _Yes, yes, it was best to wait until later to divulge their existence,_ later when their little boy would be able to understand how important it was not to tell, and he would be better able to hide such an intriguing thing from others, be they nannies or housekeepers or Uncle George or his little friends.

Julia held William Jr. in her arms. Up ahead, William carried the picnic basket and other bags, stuffed the gills full of diapers and other necessities. She held back a little giggle at the sight of him packed down as he was. "Your Daddy is so smart," she whispered to the little one in her arms as they tiptoed, sure that William could overhear her. "You see, it was your Daddy's idea to hide our bicycles in the woods. And thanks to that brilliant idea, we can get out to go on our family picnic in the park without all those pesky reporters knowing," she explained.

Just a short time later, Julia whispered loudly from behind him on her bike, her little son in front of his chest, safe in William's baby-carrier converted backsack, "Brilliant, William," congratulating him as they pedaled out – safe, a successful escape, completely unnoticed, across a neighbor's backyard.

William wondered, peaking at the neighbor's house windows through his peripheral vision, _if Julia, too, felt precariously nervous about using the backyard of_ _ **the very same judge who had presided over her murder trial**_ _to sneak out in such a stealthy manner…_

"I don't think he saw us," she answered his question about the Honorable Judge Matthews, "Nor his wife."

"Agreed," he confided. _However, they would still need to get back in later, and it would be late afternoon then, "much more likely for the older couple to be outside then,"_ William worried.

On their way to the park, William suggested that they stop and buy a newspaper. Happily, with a brief perusal of the pages, there appeared to be no terrible headlines about them today. Julia spotted it first, just as he was about to close the paper up, reading the headline aloud, " _ **Why Detective Murdoch Should be Appreciated**_ … It's by Ruby Rosevear," she exclaimed, "Remember, William, that lovely young woman from the Murdoch Appreciation Society?"

"Mm," he answered her.

"It sounds quite supportive," she encouraged, _feeling glad she had helped the young woman with the story when she had called her up unexpectedly at the morgue, had even let the young woman come by the morgue to see the body of the victim who was dumped on their property… the body dump that had started this whole mess._

"Agreed," he replied, folding the paper up and tucking it away in one of their bags for later.

) (

Bicycles secured with a lock and chain to a nearby tree, _William having learned from the time the young urchins had stolen his bicycle so long ago_ , and their picnic blanket spread out in their _spot_ – that one prefect spot of _their first kiss, and where he had watched from atop a special tree years after that, and he had seen Julia's longing for him, and grieving of being with him, her visiting_ _ **the spot, their spot, this one spot,**_ _too, on a Christmas day, with Darcy at her side –_ and now, story-tale-like happiness,the small Murdoch family played in the bright autumn leaves, just below the same tree where he had carved their initials into the bark, telling the Universe what no one else would ever know, that he loved her, undeniably, only her, she was the one, always, the only one for him _._

William had cleared out a series of small trails in the fallen leaves using some sticks he had ingeniously tied together with his handkerchief to serve as a makeshift rake. After that, until they were exhausted from the exercise of the fun, they had played tag on the trails. Now, still out of breath, they turned to collecting the beautifully-colored and intriguingly-shaped leaves. The experience of the day was picturesque, wonderful, stimulating the senses, rich with the rustling sounds of the leaves crunching underfoot, or swooshing in waves, blown about in the wind up above them in the trees, the smells, so keenly stirred by being surrounded by Nature, grass, and leaves, and dark, fertile earth tingling in the nostrils, and such vivid colors dancing for the eyes within the nip of the cooler air and sunshine on their cheeks.

Julia picked up a yellow leaf with 5 points. "Look William Jr.," her voice drew them, "A star!"

The little boy gazed up at the sky, puzzled.

"No. No, sweetie. I mean this leaf…" she tried to explain.

"Not shining?" he wondered.

"No," William interjected, "It has the _**shape**_ of a star."

The child seemed unconvinced.

Julia took a seat in the pile of leaves, then scooped the toddler up into her lap and tried to put it in simpler words, "When you see a star in the sky at night, it twinkles, and sparkles, and blinks. And so, when people draw stars, like with a pencil or a crayon, they draw little points coming out of the center of the star, to make it look like the little shiny pieces of light shooting out of it."

"Oh," he answered her. Now, better understanding the game, the boy hopped up and searched the ground looking for another. Finding one, he lifted it proudly in the air. "A **big** star!" he declared to the cheers and smiles of his parents.

"Come, let me show you," William said, sitting down on the ground next to Julia, and pulling his young son into his lap now. "That's called a shade leaf," he said…

 _His tone professorial,_ Julia thought.

William took the smaller leaf and the larger leaf and held them up next to each other for the little boy to better make a direct comparison. "See, they're the same type of leaf, probably even from the same tree," he explained, looking up to the braches crisscrossing the sky. "Oh, yes. I see," he encouraged. They followed his eyes, "This tree right here, with the spiky brown balls hanging down from the branches there… See them…"

Both Julia and William Jr. did, William catching their nods out of the corner of his eye.

"You see, the leaves up at the top of the tree can get lots of sunlight, so they can be smaller, but the ones near the bottom…" William waited for their eyes to shift lower in the tree, "those leaves have to stretch out and cover more area. They have to grow big, so that they can catch as much of the sunlight as possible down there so low, in the shade… You see, that's why it's called a " _shade_ " leaf," he taught, "because it's in the shade. All shade leaves are much bigger than regular leaves from the same tree."

Julia was impressed, gushing, "Oh I see! Let's find more like that," jumping up and leading the charge. Soon there was an abundance of myriads of colors and shapes and sizes to be admired.

"That one looks like a giant teardrop," William said of a leaf his son had found.

"Like an **elephant's** teardrop," Julia added, to emphasize its bigness.

"A hipamus," William Jr. tried to suggest.

Julia glanced proudly at William, wondering if he, too, saw this latest piece of evidence that their child was quite intelligent. Thinking so, she gushed, "Our acorn, detective… not far from the tree, hmm?"

William pinched his lips together. He agreed, but he had to admit, he was inclined towards being more humble about it.

Julia squatted down in front of the boy. "You mean a 'hip-o-pot-o-mus, Little One," his mother clarified. "Did you see one of those, a hippopotamus, at the zoo with little Alice and her mommy, Mrs. Hughes, and Claire-Marie?" she asked him.

"Yes Mommy," came his answer, his excitement jazzing his volume. Their little one's mind moved quickly though. "Still green," he said of a maple leaf at her feet.

It was true, most of the distinctly Canadian leaves – the maple leaves – down on the ground were bright yellow, with an occasional one being orange or even red. Whatever green ones there were, dangled, still up in the trees.

"I guess it got windy enough for that one to fall off anyway, before it was ready," Julia proposed.

It was then that William had a splendid idea – for a romantic gift for Julia. His mind dashed away with the enchantment of it, the planning. _He knew exactly where to get the leaves he needed. He would need an excuse to get away…_

"A mitten!" Julia declared of another yellow one William Jr. had found.

It did look like a mitten. "Let's find others like that!" she urged, dropping her eyes down to the ground for the hunt. Soon they had many. She took two of the littlest ones they'd found and sandwiched William Jr.'s tiny hand between them. "This one is for the Baby Bear…" she began.

Grasping her game, William used two of the largest mitten-shaped leaves and pinched his own hand between them and he added, "And this is for the Papa Bear…"

"Which one are we missing?" Julia asked her son.

"Momma Bear!" William Jr. yelled it out with fervor _, remembering the bedtime story, having heard it countless times, when they read it to him from the book with the pictures, or when he listened to the spinning 'phon-gaff' Daddy had put in his bedroom._ The whole family searched for two medium-sized leaves for Julia to use for her 'mitten,' not satisfied until _every_ member of the Murdoch family had been able to have a leaf-mitten that was " _ **just right**_."

Next, Julia suggested that they scoop a bunch of leaves into a big pile and then throw William Jr. into it! It was great fun. Of course, the toddler loved it, filling the air with his gleeful screeches and bubbly child laughter. "Again!" he'd call out, already in a full-out run towards either his Daddy or his Mommy, to be caught mid-leap into their arms and then sailed into the pile, over and over again. Soon tired out, they all lay down in the dilapidated pile.

"Would you like some of those bags of caramel popcorn? I know where the vendor usually is," William offered, _thinking it might be a good chance to get away and collect his leaves for his romantic surprise._

"That sounds delightful, William," Julia replied.

"I'll be right back," he said, hopping up.

)

William headed for the location he remembered seeing the redbud trees. " _Perfect_ ," he thought, finding a place where the neighboring trees of this one particular species had exactly what he wanted – _**heart-shaped leaves**_. This spot offered a full range of colors. William checked the ground and up in the branches to find precisely the ones he wanted to collect for his love trifle to Julia, preferring those that were multicolored, changing, green turning yellow, yellow turning orange, orange turning red… the hardest one of all to get being the most important – a maraschino-cherry-red heart found _only_ at the very top of the trees, out on the furthest edges of the thin braches. Needless to say, William's lumberjacking skills were about to come in handy. He was glad he was wearing his more _outdoorsy_ attire today.

)

Unaware of his 'tell,' though thanks to their successful clandestine escape from the house, there was no one else watching him anyway, William touched his fingers to his jacket pocket, checking to make sure that they were still there. Confident his leaf treasures were safe, tucked into his detective's notebook, preserved, flat, secure until later, the four perfect leaves waited, he re-juggled the bags of caramel popcorn, and picked up the pace towards his beautiful wife and his beautiful son. On approaching them from off to Julia's side, he observed that Julia had setup the picnic blanket for their lunch.

Within earshot, William announced his return, "I guess these will be part of desert, then," he said, lifting the three bags of treats up for them to see. _He hoped Julia wouldn't question him about what took him so long._

"That will be lovely," Julia smiled at him.

 _He knew it_ , his face returning her smile without his even thinking about it, he sensed it in every cell, she was admiring him. _My God, he loved that look from her, reveled in catching her in it_.

Abruptly, William's eyes dropped away, something urgent calling his attention… William Jr., in a mad dash, was headed his way. " _Secure the popcorn – incoming_ ," his inner voice played, childlike, with himself. Bracing for impact, he remained standing rather than crouching down to catch the inbound little boy, and William Jr. plowed into his Daddy's legs and wrapped his arms around tight for a big hug.

"Hey there, Little Man," he greeted, caramel popcorn bags safely pressed against his chest, reaching down to take that sweet, tiny little hand in his. "I'll wager you're pretty hungry, hmm?" he asked.

"Yes Daddy," the boy's reply, _adorable_ , only served to further intensify his Daddy's love.

The two Murdoch men joined Julia on the picnic blanket and she started passing out their lunch – peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the toddler's juice in a baby bottle…

"Nooo," his complaint registered in typical two-year old fashion… _**loudly**_ , "Big boy cup!" the little one insisted with a pout.

Julia started explaining why it was necessary, that he couldn't picnic with a 'regular' cup until he was no longer eating in his highchair at home… _But, tangentially in her mind, she was noticing, with a thrill, how their son's complaint had reminded her so very much of William – particularly triggering her memories, delightful ones, from this morning when William complained about being bothered when he wanted to sleep longer_. In that moment of toddler opposition, she could not have been more grateful to the Universe. Perhaps it was that sensation of warmth in her soul that led her to shower the boy with compassion, telling him she understood it must feel bad not being allowed to do the things that bigger boys do all the time, but to remember that _**he was**_ doing more and more grownup things every day – that he drinks out of a cup at home, where there is a table, or a highchair tray. He just needed to be patient, she promised he'd be picnicking just like the big people soon enough.

Still, the child's persistence railed, finally paying off, William suggesting he could ask one of them to take the lid, with its offending 'baby' nipple, off each time he was going to take a drink of juice, and then they would put the lid back on for him when he was done, so it wouldn't spill. It was a good compromise.

The bunch of them were hungry – and conversation lulled. Julia pulled out a wine bottle and corkscrew, opened it and then passed her husband a glass, planning on **not** taking 'no' for an answer. The look they shared staggered each of them momentarily. _William Murdoch was clearly not planning on saying 'no' to the alcohol, and he was definitely being flooded by the same memory she was._

Breathless, she moved closer to him. Julia's eyes dropped down to the collar on his 'weekend outing' shirt. Securing her glass of wine down on the blanket first, she fiddled and played and pinched his collar, pleased it was unbuttoned at the top, her eyes seemingly entranced by it and said, "I DO like your suits, William… But, I must say, sometimes this more _rugged_ look…"

He felt a button go… _Such a lightning strike._

Julia cleared her throat, eyes enjoying the deeper peek at his flesh, "Your 'ranch-hand / lumberjack' look … mm…mm…mm," she told him, leaning her face closer, fluttering him with her breath. Then questioning herself about her statement, she tilted her head and divulged, "Though... those less _roomy_ suits you used to wear back when we first met… those were quite nice too," she nodded agreeing with herself, _savoring the secret memories of the lust-spurring sight of Detective William Murdoch in his more revealing suits of old._ Her big, blue eyes dillydallied further down his casual, now even more unbuttoned, shirt, releasing one more of the little captors, revealing the convexing contours of his pectoral muscles, and then she slipped her palms up along the outside of the shirt fabric covering his chest, sneaking up under the lapels of his western-looking, shorter, and deliciously tighter, suede jacket, her hands riding the firm bulges of his deltoid muscles, guiding the jacket lower down his arms until her fingers found his biceps, under the jacket sleeves. "Not to mention those new, deliciously snug, denim trousers…"

William stopped her there, his fingers under her chin, picking up her face, bringing her eyes to his. She sensed it, well hidden under his scolding look, his longing. She smiled and leaned back, just a little and concluded, "Such a feast for the eyes, is all," with a shrug.

)

After they had finished lunch and cleaned it up, the three of them lie flat-out on their backs together, gazing up at the clear blue sky. It was the baby's nap time, and so it was no surprise the two-year old fell off to sleep… but Julia, that was less expected. William had spoken to her, in a whisper, not wanting to wake the sleeping toddler on the other side of her. It was her lack of an answer that had made him smile. _Julia had fallen asleep too._ He basked there, in his memories, _of her sexual advances, sometime in the dawn of morning, a mere few hours ago, and then her being downstairs later, preparing breakfast for them all, after he had dreamily slumbered in the gift of her letting him sleep in._ " _Contentment,"_ was not a strong enough word for the feelings in his heart, perhaps " _absolute gratitude to God"_ for his good fortune, he suggested to himself. William allowed the euphoric feelings to linger, to sink in, enhancing them with a deep breath, fueling the flames. _He was so very, very happy._

Sometime later, Julia wafted closer and closer to consciousness, the heaviness, the sweet oscillation of her sleepy swaying settling until she knew, at that moment, that she was awake. Her eyes opened already aware that he was there. His attention _so soft, yet focused on her_ , and she was certain, _he had been adoring her,_ adoring both her and their baby, cherishing them, but his focus had returned wholly to her, the way they each do sometimes of the other, marveling at their bounty and feeling the glow of love in their hearts.

 _Her eyes, magnetizing, big, beyond beautiful, breathtaking, stunning,_ as she opened them and held them adamant, unwaveringly fixed to his.

"Are you going to kiss me?" she asked him, after a moment of waiting, anticipating the tender touch of his lips to hers.

William pulled back slightly, "Julia," his tone one of shock, "We are in a public place," he reminded her, "There are people around," he lowered his voice to a whisper

Her eyebrow up so high, admonishing him, then turning to analyze the details of the scene – _picnic blanket spread out on the grass, the two of them lying together on it, in the same, exact, perfect, spot, the subtle whiff of alcohol on their breath…_

And happily, they both fell into a huddle of shushed laughter at the absurdity that he would dare to say such a thing in light of where they were.

The laughter calming, William explained, "I thought I'd let you go back to sleep... maybe you'll dream I'm kissing you," his voice ended with a cocky edge to it, his fingers failing to resist grasping one of her curls.

She took a deep breath, let his closeness descend into her more deeply, his smell, his eyes twinkling at her, "I'd rather have you _**BE my**_ _**dream come true…"**_

And with that final wish, he did kiss her, _and kiss her, and kiss her,_ _kiss, after wonderful kiss…_

)

Not aware that she had drifted off once more, Julia awoke to discover herself still on the picnic blanket in the park, now lying on her side, facing away from William. " _Fifteen minutes, perhaps a half an hour?_ " she questioned how long she had slept, feeling the grogginess dissipate. William's voice… " _He must be talking to William Jr.,"_ she reasoned, his tone the one he used with their little son.

"Big boys…" William said, _Julia determining from his chosen words that he was in the process of trying to convince the child to do something,_ "…learn to use the toilet. That way they don't have to wear diapers anymore."

"Like Daddy," William Jr.'s sweet voice answered.

"Mm-hmm," Julia heard William reply, "And Mommy, and two-year-olds, like you almost are, like your friend Alice. Shall we try using a potty at home, so you can start to learn?"

"O.K. Daddy," the little one agreed, motivated to be a big boy _, subconsciously striving for his parents to love him, to be proud of him._

Julia rolled over to center their little son between them and added, "And then Eloise won't have to use Daddy's laundry cupboard all the time to wash all those dirty diapers anymore. I'm sure she will be glad of that, hmm?" she nestled her face into the little boy's soft black curls and gave him a kiss.

"Mmm," William said enthusiastically, "She'll have more time to make her yummy meals… and desserts," his eyes widening with their mutual delight at the idea.

Diaper changed, child back in his short pants, William sat up and reminded himself about the pond just down the hill. _They could rinse out the dirty diaper there_. Then he remembered, motioning off in the distance, prompting the rest of his family to follow suit. "I saw a rowboat, over on the other side of the pond…" unable to finish his thought before…

Julia exulted, "What fun!" and gave her son an excited squeeze, "A ride in a boat."

)

The Murdoch father had ventured to traipse across the swampy mess of the pond's shore to get the rowboat for his family and then paddle it over to retrieve them. While Julia and William Jr. waited for him to return, Julia took the opportunity to show her young son some of the wildlife at the pond's edge. They named the algae, and the cattails, and they saw a frog take a jump into the water and swim underneath it to get away, with his really long legs. It was great fun.

The sound of the oars stroking the water caught Julia's notice and she lifted her hand to shade her eyes to see William coming to shore. She took William Jr.'s hand and guided him back to make room for the boat.

"Ships ahoy," William called out, clearly having a blast with this whole ordeal. The boat slid up through the muck to make land and William jumped out, pulling it a bit further up on the shore to secure it.

He reached his hands out and said to Julia, "Hand me that pirate, matey," using his best pirate "argh," after the request. William held the baby and helped Julia step into the boat before handing the little one over to her, holding the boat steady while she settled them down together on the front seat facing the back of the boat, where he would sit to work the oars.

Once William had pushed them out into the water and jumped in to sit on the back seat facing them, she said, "It brings back memories of the Inspectors son, Bobby… playing at being pirates, does it not?"

"Yes," he said, remembering the time distinctly, poignantly, _he and Julia walking arm in arm in the park, coming upon the Brackenreid's playing with their son in his "pirate ship." The Inspector and his boy engaged in a sword fight, Margaret cheering them on. William had even joined in with the game for a while._

"Yes," he said again, his tone more thoughtful, "Bittersweet." He gave her his wrinkled corner of the mouth expression.

The gesture making Julia curious. "For me, certainly…" she questioned.

He nodded, explaining, "We were parted Julia. I was… troubled."

"You met Enid then," she pushed him, thinking it had stung _**her**_ far more than it had _**him**_.

 _Then he said it. It rocked her soul with its magnitude, for it proved that it was true with him, that what he vowed to her all the time was profoundly true for him, that everything, everything, always comes back to her._

"And you had the seed planted in your head that day, that I would never be able to love you… It started that day, you said…" his brown eyes so melty, showing his pain as they held to hers, "With your seeing my wish to have a big family," he blew out some air, the action burning the remembered pain deeper into his chest, "You decided it then, that it was better for me to be with someone else, not to be with you. It's why you left me to go to Buffalo," his eyes held unblinking to hers, letting her see the sincerity of the hurt of it. And the boat slowed in its glassy-smooth drifting, for the oars had ceased, as if stuck somehow in a mirror of a different time.

"I see," she said. _And she did_.

Both turned, in a subconscious, agreed upon kind of unison, to change the conversation, both focusing on William Jr. once more.

The little toddler had been watching them, listening to them, entranced by the adult's intense talk. But now, he snapped back – _a wonder, how such a small child can know his parents have turned_ _ **to him**_ _to help them, to bring them back to a happier reality and time_.

"Faster Daddy!" he urged.

Julia considered, as the boat made it to the center of the pond, William's comment about the memory being _bittersweet_ , now understanding the reasons that William would feel it had been _bitter_ , and instead finding she was feeling challenged to find the _sweet_. " _Perhaps it was because he had been able to get Bobby back from the kidnappers, and the Inspector s family was so happy. Perhaps it was because they themselves had ended up even happier in the end…"_

Quietly, William ceased paddling, let the boat slow. "I've been _**POND**_ ering," he attempted one of her puns, only to be disappointed when she did not laugh, finding as he checked, that she was apparently deep in thought. He sighed and then gazed out at the autumn view. "Look at the colors of the trees, and how they reflect in the water," his voice awed.

"Booful," William Jr. said.

"It is booful, isn't it?" Julia hugged him tight in her lap.

The toddler squiggled, wanting down, wanting to get to the edge of the boat, to feel the cool water glide over his hand…

Her maternal instincts, immediately keenly aware of the danger, clutched him tighter.

And, being almost two, his typical toddler reaction was to up the ante, demanding to be let go.

Her eyes jumped to William's, pleading for help.

 _It had been problematic in the past_. William sighed _, it would likely be 'an issue' for them in the future as well,_ he reminded himself, _their disagreements over the amount of risk-taking that was good for a child._

Julia noticed his reticence, concluding, " _William thinks I should let him go… go to the edge of the boa…"_

Suddenly, his mother released him.

With an excited squeal, William Jr. darted to the edge and kneeled down on the floor of the boat to bend over the edge and splash the water.

"So cold!" he exclaimed, eyes bugged wide.

"So pay attention. Make sure you don't fall in," William cautioned.

"O.K. Daddy," came the answer.

Touched by the trusting and the care and the confidence inherent in their father-son exchange, and even more so, calmed by the boy's decision to kneel - even when _**not told**_ to do so, Julia made herself breathe. Still, she heard herself warn the precious baby, "Be careful, please, William Jr. It's not the bathtub. It's very deep."

"O.K. Mommy," he answered her.

"Can I come see too?" she asked, "Can you see any fish?" She tried so desperately to be as assured as William.

)

Back on shore, William decided to leave the boat where they had landed it. William Jr. wanted to find the frog – "to show Daddy."

They all hunted for the frog, _any frog_ , for a while, having fun finding all sorts of things instead. Julia voiced a thought, that they could feed the fish and frogs and whatever else, some of the caramel popcorn. "William Jr. hadn't finished his earlier," she suggested, and William went to get it.

Disappointingly, it seemed that the wildlife was not the slightest bit interested in coming to eat the popcorn, _well at least not the little fishes they had spotted in the shallow water, anyway_. A few minutes later, though, Julia spotted a turtle.

"I bet _**he'll**_ want some popcorn," she hoped, tossing the last piece of the treat she had in her hand out in front of the creature. She imagined getting the impressively large turtle to come closer and closer by making a trail with the caramel popcorn, _but also, she noticed, on some far-off level, that their little boy, with his bag of what was left of their caramel popcorn, was not around. Subconsciously her body stiffened, becoming alert to the dang_ er. But, she was distracted, and William had started to push aside the willowy cattails and to step off into the muck to go catch, what he called, ' _the walking rock_.'

"This will be great to show William Jr.," William gleamed with a whisper, so as not to frighten off the beast, as he snuck deeper into the tall weeds.

"Be careful, William," Julia sounded worried, "It might be a snapping turt…"

 _ **WILLIAM JR.'S BLOODCURDLING SCREAMS SHRIEKED THE AIR from behind them,**_ sending electrical shockwaves through his parents, so immediately full of adrenalin that they wouldn't even remember running to him…

! - !

Suddenly overtaken, lost in a swarm of geese, taller than him, bigger than him, aggressive, lunging and prodding and poking and pinching and fighting with each other to gain the advantage in stealing away the tiny, helpless, little human's treasure, William Jr.'s brain instinctively giving him bad advice, _to hold onto his bag of caramel popcorn with all his might,_ creating a dangerous game of tug-of-war with the monstrous beasts, their scary, hard, pointy beaks stabbing in at him from the front, and from behind, and from all sides, overwhelming the terrified little toddler with their squawking, and their flapping onslaughts, and those awful beady eyes… Fear! Panic! Terror engulfed the little child. But then, _from somewhere, somewhere far way and inside and close, like inside his head or in his chest, like his Daddy's voice, and his Mommy's voice, and somehow his own too,_ came the sturdy, guaranteed instruction – _**Scream!**_ _ **Scream! Scream with everything you have. They will come! They will come.**_

And William Jr.'s bloodcurdling screams filled the air…

Instantly his Daddy had him in his arms, and he buried his face in his Daddy's big, safe shoulder, and he heard his own muffled screams still shrieking and shrieking with his fear, and his Daddy's heart pounded so, and his Daddy's big, strong words told him that, " _he was alright_ ," and then his Daddy squeezed him even tighter to his chest, as he engaged in battle with the beasts, joining his mother... William Jr. definitely heard _his mother, his mother fighting too! Fighting for him._

Soon, his Mommy's soft warmth behind him, William Jr. was sandwiched, cocooned, between them, and she told her Little One in his ear that, "The scary geese are gone now. You're fine. Breathe, sweetie. It's O.K. It's O.K…"

And then his Daddy insisted, insisted that he look, look to see that the geese were gone, that it was safe now, and although he clung to his Daddy with all his might, he was still lowered down until his feet touched the ground.

"Come on, my big boy," his Daddy encouraged, "You can stand by yourself. We scared the geese away…"

His Mommy next to him, said, "We promise, Little One. Here, hold my hand."

And the boy was brave, for he let go of his big, strong Daddy, and he stood on his own, holding his Mommy's hand.

"Good," his father said. "One of your first adventures."

Such a whirlwind seemed to spin all around him, and it seemed so strange that everything except his head was completely still. And William Jr. decided that he wasn't so sure he liked " _adventures_ " much.

"Now, where did that turtle go," his mother took a deep breath and turned to the art of distraction to teach her young child coping skills. _It had been quite a scare for such a tiny little boy to be attacked by a gaggle of geese, and he would need to forget about it, at least for a little while, so as not to have a domino-effect expand his panic._ "Mommy and Daddy saw a big, big turtle. Daddy said it looked like a walking rock…"

) (

Home, _truly, there was no place else like it_ , William worked out with his weights while Julia and the baby played together in the playroom right next to his workroom. Contentedly, between his grunts, _which he made major efforts to stifle so as not to be overheard struggling by Julia,_ he listened to their intermittent conversations. The little boy was coloring with crayons, and, he imagined, Julia was reading alongside of him.

Picture in hand, _already knowing she would like it_ , William Jr. brought his masterpiece to his Mommy.

She pulled him up into her lap, his back cuddling against her bosom, and his soft curls brushing under her chin, as he held his picture out, displayed in front of them both, and she admired the mishmash of lines and colors, unable to tell what, if anything, it was meant to be.

"What's this?" she asked him, the smell of his bath seeping sweetly into her nose. As she and her son both gazed down at his artwork, opened wide in front of them, a memory poured through her…

 _Julia had been a bit older than William Jr., maybe three or four. She had brought a picture she had colored to her mother. Similarly, her mother had scooped her up into her lap so lovingly and held out the pièce de résistance for them both to see. "A butterfly!" she had declared, "Julia, it's beautiful, and is this the yellow flower we saw it land on? My goodness, my beautiful Julia loves her colors!" The warmth, and love, the care, reaching far deeper than Julia had ever expected possible, the feelings were beyond moving, much more than touching – poignant, tender, powerful. It brought tears to her eyes. Such a beautiful memory of being loved by her mother, one she had never remembered before. And now, she was so grateful, in that moment, for… everything._

She squeezed her boy tight, kissed his hair, took in the smell of him, thanked him, thanked her mother, thanked William. _So eloquent_ , she thought, _the way the little boy accepted, tolerated, her unexplained swelling of love and emotion, not asking her why, just absorbing it._

Sniffling back the tears, she turned her attention back to the drawing and guessed that the blue squiggles at the top might be sky, and her lovely son nodded yes to her suggestion.

"You, Mommy… And Daddy. And me," he said.

And she, sort of, saw it, _the red at the bottom_ , guessing aloud, "On the red blanket in the park today?"

"Yes Mommy," he answered and then wriggled free to go draw some more.

)

Julia warmed up the Beef Stroganoff from yesterday, along with a few other things for a light dinner. _William had been right, it tasted even better than it would have in his office on a Friday, and she forgave herself for her mistake about his Catholic faith in her head one more time._

Interrupting them, there had been a phone call. William returned to the table and told her that it was their handyman at their body farm, Jake Castern. He had found evidence that someone had tried to dump a body again, but, fortunately, the culprit had gotten caught in William's trap. They had pictures! The scrutiny cameras had taken photographs, and the man's face would most likely be on the film. Regrettably, the perpetrator had escaped his capture, eventually, leaving only the evidence of his attempted crime behind, deployed nets hanging from trees, one of which had been cut-opened with a knife, and multiple expended red-dye packs that had successfully fired off along the fence line, most likely covering the man who had triggered the booby-trap in red dye. At least, William speculated that that was what the photographs would show. He was bubbling with excitement, and pride, for his trap had worked! He wanted to go, right now, to get the film, but Julia talked him into waiting until tomorrow. It was agreed that he would take a trip to the Body farm tomorrow, after church, to get the film and reset the traps. _Maybe catching the "Body-Farm Dumper" wasn't going to be so hard after all…_

)

William Jr. had been tucked into bed quite some time ago. William remained downstairs reading up on still more possible machine parts that could conceivably make a bruise on a man's leg, like the one they had found on the victim – an overly large hand-like shape, with one larger bottom circle surrounded by four symmetrically placed semicircles. It was a puzzle. Julia headed upstairs to get ready for bed.

She spotted it instantly, waiting for her on her vanity. _William must have expected she would find it there when she brushed her hair for the night. "So that was why he was so reluctant to come upstairs with me!" She figured, it making sense knowing William as well as she did, that he wanted her to find it alone, so he wouldn't feel awkward. "He must have done all of this today, collected the leaves, made the leaf-shaped pages for the notes he wanted to write, tied all the stems of the hearts together to make a… What could you even call it?"_ she wondered in her head, breathless, " _This spectacular love-note, a little love-booklet, I guess."_

The top leaf was a heart-shaped note, written in William's hand. It said, "The Story of My Heart."

Julia sat, still a bit stunned, in her chair at her vanity, and stroked his gift with her fingers, treasuring it already. There was an urge to cry, tingling and warming in the backs of her eyes and a choked-up tightening in her throat. _He had a wonderful heart_ , and she already knew, William's had been a heart-wrenching, as well as heartwarming, story. She folded back that top note and discovered a green, heart-shaped leaf underneath. The surface of the leaf was still moist, petal-soft with youth, and she bent it back ever so carefully, to read the next note underneath it.

" _ **Before I met you, my heart was green, inexperienced in love and promised to another, devoted and loyal, strong and true. But, I did not know, I had not yet experienced, the fire, the power, the remarkably impossible effect of you."**_

Her mind flashed so many images, going in so many directions, but the trail she followed, as it glimmered and caught in her mind's eye, was of seeing _William's pocket watch. Liza had given it to him. She had had it engraved, promising her love for him, and he had suffered so terribly with her illness and her death._ And Julia knew then, had suspected it even that early on, in her own heart that she loved this man, this man who was so dedicated to another. And she felt guilt, guilt that the woman's death had offered her the opportunity to love him, to have his love. Still now, she noticed, she felt that guilt.

She took a deep breath, ready to move on in the story of William's heart.

Under the note for the green leaf, there was a beautiful, heart-shaped leaf, this one orange and yellow, the colors so vibrant, flaming and pure, reminding of fire, and she wondered with such intensity, what the note under it would say. She bent the hue-changing leaf back, saw the words written there…

" _ **But the very moment I met you, it was the power of the glowing, burning, undeniable need to be closer to you, to be with you … I felt it, first, just a flutter, a tickle, the fuse catching, catching that tiny, little stem, from outside directly to my deepest center of my heart, like the wick in a candle, and my world, my life, would never be the same, for I knew it in that instant, you were the one for me, my match in every way, and I ignited, changed, became filled with a courage and a joy I had never known, a striving desire to be better, to be better than I was, better than I could be, for you. I loved you then, and I knew that I would love you forever."**_

Julia felt her face flush with the excitement of what he had written to her. " _Courage and joy_ ," her mind fiddled with the words, " _Like a wick in a candle… closer… better… better for you_."

The next leaf was orange, a deep, blood-orange, much like the color of the roses William had recently bought her. And her mind played a memory of her sitting at their kitchen table, his red-orange roses in the center, triggering her to remember him telling her on a night now seemingly long ago, when they were in their hotel right after they had been married, his roses clutched behind his back to surprise her, vowing that he would never stop courting her. " _And he hadn't! He truly hadn't_ ," she thought.

" _ **Embers burn orange, my love, with a passion, a passion only felt when holding on, holding with everything you have, praying, hoping, regretting, for it hurts so, that it will never die, just glowing, and burning, pining, lonely, forever if need be, for you, like embers, have lost your flame, and so you wait, you endure, glowing away your every ounce of life, waiting, waiting all alone. And this is what my heart did then, like the orange embers left over in the fireplace, while you were betrothed, married, loving another. Not mine, maybe never again, mine."**_

The message was one of loss, and it hurt and burned inside her chest profoundly, swelling a tear that blurried the words under her eyes. And yet, she was so glad, grateful, that he had waited, that he not moved on, that he had not found another. Julia felt herself nodding, " _yes_ , yes," to the realization that the story of his heart was the story of her heart, for they were one, and she knew it as surely as she knew she had marrow in her bones, they had always been one, and they always, always, would be… one.

Julia already knew, before she turned the page, before she bent the white paper shaped like a heart backwards to reveal it, still carefully she bent it, for this story, as William had found his own unique way to tell it, it was precious… and yet, she knew before she saw it, the last leaf would be red.

Her pupils, even so, despite already knowing, dilated wide with the beauty of the purity of the red heart in her hands, her breath taken, _astounding_ , the vivid color. Tears flowed down her cheeks, _**for it was as if she held William's heart, itself, in her grasp**_ , she felt such love inside of her. She swallowed back the burn of the emotions, bent the pure red heart, to discover that last page of the story of his heart.

" _ **Then such an eruption, implosion… You, in that stunning, deep, velvety luscious, red dress at the Ball, and suddenly, there was an overflowing of abundance, profound, unbelievable, impossible and wonderful abundance, an abundance of oxygen to feed the flames, to breathe life into the red-blood pumping through my veins, you walked in and you set me on fire again, my love, re-kindled me, but so much stronger than I had ever been kindled before. It IS you Julia. YOU. You are my future, my now, my past. You are my everything. You are my very life energy, my primal life force."**_

The message too long, too long to fit on that one heart-shaped page, and so she turned one more leaf page, the final one, on the very bottom, the end of the tale of his heart.

" _ **The touch of you, the torch of you inside my heart has become a boundless blaze, an undying inferno, and thus, my heart is alive, throbbing, pounding, crying and soaring, full, completely full, and yet, astoundingly I find, its love still grows more each day. And, although I give you this message with "leaves," leaves that have grown and thrived and now will die for having left their trees, you know, I know... we both know, that my promise to you, whispered endlessly, over and over again as we reach peak, after peak, together, that I will never, ever, truly LEAVE you... It is true. For our love is now forged, complete, solid, unbreakable, and eternal. We can never truly be the one without the other, not deep in our souls, not deep in our hearts. Yes, your heart may beat longer than mine, but if it does so, it will have ME inside of it, just as mine has YOU. And, I say to you, that if you ever need proof of this, of this endless and undying connection fusing us as one, you will find it in our son's eyes, my love. It is forever, this love we share, both me and you, forever, and honest, and true."**_

Julia Ogden found herself, gazing down at his written words, floored, beyond enamored with the romance of it, the sincerity of it. She decided then, to put on his favorite garment, a silky piece of flimsy lingerie. She would go downstairs to him. She would _thank_ him, thoroughly, thoroughly _thank him_ , through and through. She loved him so, and she wanted William Henry Murdoch to feel good, to feel very good – all over, from the top of his head down to the very tips of his toes, and everywhere, _most certainly everywhere_ , in between.

 _Sometimes, when she looked at him,_

 _he forgot…_

 _forgot the case,_

 _forgot whatever it was that he had just been thinking about,_

 _forgot how to form words…_

 _Even more terrifying,_

 _he even forgot how to, or even that he needed to,_

 _breathe._

 _He seemed to do nothing but fall,_

 _fall into her._

)

First, attentively placing his heart leaves, entangled and mingled with the love notes that compiled the story of his heart, placing the trinket down on the side table next to him, where he sat by the fire in his recliner, his chocolate brown eyes glazed over and intense, thoroughly enchanted, _captured by her_ , Julia took his mechanical journal out of his hands and assertively tossed it down onto the couch. She reached over, _so scrumptious_ , William's gorgeous eyes dropping down to watch the gentle jiggles of her bosom trapped inside the fine thin silk as she did so, to click off the reading lamp. His breath already surging out of his nostrils, she crawled up on top of him, both of them bathed in the crackling, low firelight dancing in its golden hues, only making them each more beautiful to the other.

Her kiss was controlled, but deep, her breath telling him of her efforts in restraint, divulging her hunger for him, the steamy blasts charging, flaring, out of her nose, to pour hot and strong, each rapid cascade rushing its whirlwinds all over his face as her lips molded and moved and pushed into his, the sultry mist spilling down to titillate his neck.

Against his hard chest, spongy-soft, and so warm, her body, just under that silky, _naughty, forbidden…_

 _My God,_ she was all over him, moving with such a primal and urgent rhythm, rocking him down to his very soul with want. William's heart raged in his chest, betraying his strained hold on… everything. Resistance, his purest instinct, when the wave hit, when it hit _this_ hard, when it hit _this_ unexpectedly. But, he _**did**_ want her. _My God_ , he wanted her. And Julia's brain pounded and throbbed, begging him without a sound, " _Let go William. Take me. Take what you want. Behave badly, my God, please,"_ the overwhelming power of the spasms, and the twitches, and the twisting in her womb, threatening her very life force, as she pleaded with him in her head, and rubbed, and squeezed, and oozed all over him.

Such a mutual plummeting, when his hand snuck up the back of her long, supple thigh, and tucked seductively under the loosely-fitted opening of her lingerie bottoms. And he released an internal moan, so deep and abandoned that it spilled out into their kiss, at discovering her creamy warmth. His brashness not going unnoticed by her, _oh_ , he knew that she felt it, that she felt him touching, that she felt him taking, for her body responded by growing heavier on him and then he felt her smile against his aroused skin. It warned she would tease…

"Do you think you're getting away with something there, detective," she slyly asked him, with a sharp nip, lusciously drowning the sting of it in her mouth's humid, satiny, rugged kiss, specifically at the most tender spot, the vulnerable, wild, throbbing of his neck, somehow, now his shirt torn away, her hands ravaging his chest muscles, moving down further to treasure his firm rippled stomach "Did you think you could, "COP," a feel," she giggled, rather rambunctiously, quite liking this particular joke of hers.

His smile, followed so very quickly by… the giggle breaking off abruptly, for his lust demanded seriousness, demanded that he act, insisted, charged, that he take her… **now**.

There was a tilt, the reclining chair resetting, now upright. A squeeze, _but was it him or was it her, they hugged together so tightly_ , as the world seemed to drop and they floated, soared, up, high, her in his arms as he stood, with a spin. William flung her, so delightfully, commandingly, he flung her down onto the couch. His jaw tight, demanding, _taking, he was taking_. _She couldn't breathe… couldn't breathe._

How the world reeled as she watched, as she heard, as she anticipated, and her insides crushed and wrung and gushed and flooded ahead with torqueing need, and she hung there helpless, weak, suspended with lustful begging, her world sheer torrents, for she watched as he undid his trousers. The pants, they were just gone, and he was… _My God, he was so ready…_

 _He would take of her bottoms, he would spread her thighs gaining access. He would have his way with her. He would… OH, MY, GOD… He would… He would…_

)

Slowing, finished, both so deliciously finished, remaining euphorically boundaryless for a time, hearts touching, pounding the one into the other, still so fast, but slowing, and she loved him so much she could do nothing but quake underneath him as her crying began, perhaps from the utter exhaustion of striving to get him closer, to pull him near enough to reach their perfection together, and she basked in his care, for he loved her so, and he promised her there on their couch by the fire, secretly in her ear, that he would love her forever, for all of time.

By the time he rolled them over and she rested her head down on his chest to hear his heartrate had recovered, she found herself thinking of his sweet promises, and his heart-shaped leaves and his touching notes. A smile slipped onto her face, remembering how she had wanted to make him feel _**good**_.

"It seemed you quite liked it," she said, shifting upward over him a bit more.

Joy glowed her heart with his laugh, after it, typical of William, a simple, "Yes."

Her memory flashed then, back to their beginnings, _he was beyond handsome then, even more attractive than he is today, and he had just asked her to the Dinosaur Ball. Adorably, William was so awkward, his big brain searching for what to say after she agreed to go with him, and stumbling, faltering, right before her very eyes, and she had loved him even more for it. He had managed to nod, charming, truth be told, and to say his simple, "Very good." My God, how she already loved him then._

They lie together, listening to just the crackling of the fire, watching the shadows and glows flicker and ripple in the room.

Julia cleared her throat, readying to tell him something. She felt his chin lower, his face tilting down to her, a soft kiss on her hair. Attentive, his fingers playing with a wisp of her curls. Taking her time, _wanting to say it right_ , she inhaled and slowed herself down. "I admit that what you wrote in your heart-leaf story was true, in a sense…"

"Mmm," he answered.

His breath, warmed over her head as he exhaled – _an effort at staying calm, perhaps?_

"I know, William, that you are right, that I will always have your love. And it is such a wonderful feeling to know it so surely,"

He sensed it coming though, she knew he sensed it coming, the " _but_."

He rolled her, bringing them each to lie on their sides within their embrace, face to face. He tucked a cushion under his head and gave her his bicep as her pillow. Each lured by the other's eyes, Julia noticed that she had always felt her face was _**so small**_ when William held it in his hand like this, and his fingers traced and memorized her cheeks and her jaw and her chin, and sometimes, so tenderly, her mouth. And Julia felt tears swell in her eyes, for she would tell him how deeply she felt her dread of losing him, she would tell him again, for she had told him many times before, and she would tell him again, she would tell him now.

"I… I cannot, William, I just can't," she started, shaking her head, slow but definite, the hypnotic motion attesting to it, "I can't…"

 _In William's mind the image flashed, so quickly, he found himself amazed it could land with such pain, the memory of her saying to him these exact same words, after he had returned from the Yukon, and they had restarted their working together even though she was married to Darcy, and she told him back then, late at night in his office, in a similar lowlight, that she couldn't bear the pain of being with him while not being able to love him, and she had to leave, leave the morgue, leave him. He would lose her again, and it was so profoundly a huge loss, it had felt like a forever loss, and with the memory of it, William, too, felt the heat of the watery pools of tears filling his eyes._

Julia had to touch him, seeing his tears forming, her delicate fingers cupping his cheek, scratching back into his fine hair, catching the tender edge of his ear. "I'm sorry, so sorry, William, but I can't agree, adamantly, I cannot agree that it is possible that you could never leave me. I could not feel such pain in the imagining of it, if it were not so, if you could not be gone someday."

And though he did not say it, he did not nod, still, Julia knew he understood, he agreed, he knew what she said was true. She leaned in, salty, the taste, the heat of the kiss.

"You said the leaves would die, for having left their trees…"

Now, William did nod.

He cleared his throat, so choked-up and dry, "But the notes won't," he ended up whispering it, hanging on _, like those orange embers_ , holding out for hope.

"No, no they won't," she gave, "But the leaves, like your body, will. And when…" _she decided to add an_ , "if," _for it was possible that she would die before him_ , "if… you die before I do, then there is no doubt that you will have left me, William. Without you, I will be alone. But, like the notes, it is true, I will always know I have your love. Always," she kissed him deeper now. The soft ' _tick_ ' as the kiss broke off, warm like the fire, and her lips kissed down his jaw to his ear, "Always," she whispered, again.

A few moments later, the searing intensity of their discussion cooled and settled, she worried that the beautiful leaves he had collected for her would become brown and brittle, and fade away. William had an idea – he would photograph each leaf-page. He knew an art studio where they could color in the photographs. She would have it, _**the story of his heart**_ , she would have it forever.

Agreed, comforted, after that, William rolled her onto her back, tucking her snuggly between himself and the confines of the couch, and a cozy silence ensued. Their minds meandered, here and there, playing out much of the events of the day.

William began to plan out tomorrow – _Early Mass, then up to meet Jake Castern at the Body Farm…_

Julia had become involved with admiring his physique, her fingers and eyes traveling the various enticing contours of his arms, and his shoulders, and his chest, and his stomach. Her voice broke the silence.

"Was your work-out strenuous today?" she asked him, not ceasing her adoring stoking.

"Mm-hmm," his simple answer, his own attentions drawn to focus on the beauty of her face, her blushed skin, entrancingly blue eyes.

"Thank you," she giggled, and then wondered, lifting a discerning eyebrow at him, "You do do all that muscle-building for me, do you not?"

His eyes caught hers – _my God, it never ceased to amaze her how warm, and deep, and big, and gorgeous his eyes were_.

"I do it for the magic of this," he said, a gentle gesturing with his hand waving down the pair of them clung together, intimate, romantic…

"For the sex?" she checked.

He chuckled, for it was true, and her surprise that he would say so tickled him, but there was more. "Julia, this, what we have, it is much more than sex, it makes breathing worth…"

Julia jerked up to stare out at the foyer. "I heard something," she whispered.

William alerted too, he had also heard…

Little William Jr. emerged around the corner, his trusted stuffed rabbit, Blanco, in tow, clutched by the ear.

The little toddler had brought himself down the stairs. _He was looking for them… didn't find them in their bedroom,_ their minds hurried to explain their son's unexpected appearance.

"Baby! Little One, what is it?" Julia's sweet concerned voice soothed, and she pushed over William to sit up and open her arms to catch the running tike, who jumped into her arms and buried his face in her pillowy softness.

"Hey, hey," she kissed into his black curls, blanketing the tiny distressed one with nurturing rubs and soothing hugs. "Mommy and Daddy are right here, hmm? Everything's fine, sweetie," she promised.

William was half-way through rushing to put his trousers back on when his brain reminded him that their baby commonly saw them each naked – _they each even took baths with him sometimes_. _Besides, William Jr.'s face being completely submerged in his mother as it was, their tiny son had likely not even noticed his parents' half-naked states anyway,_ he decided. He buttoned up his trousers, leaned over and got Julia's bottoms from the floor too, meeting her eye as he placed them on the couch next to her, then sat down next to them and joined in on the soothing.

Julia took a deep breath. William knew she had figured something important out. _She was amazingly good at things like this_. She gave him a look, reassuring him that he was right. Her voice low, in an effort to keep it between the parents, "The Park," was all she said, and _William's mind searched, arriving quickly to the memory of the wild geese attacking the little toddler._

Julia tucked her face down closer to her son again and said, "Sometimes, when scary things happen, we have bad dreams. But they're not real, Little One. Dreams aren't real. There are no scary geese here. You're safe, I promise."

William stood and leaned over to get his voice close to his son. "When I have bad dreams, or your Mommy has bad dreams, we share a hot chocolate. I'll go make some, hmm? It's warm, and yummy…" He rubbed his son's small back reassuringly, and stood up to go make the warm treat.

But then, William returned, _far_ _too quickly_ , Julia knew.

"I thought of what I do in my dreams, to not be so scared," William encouraged. "I get mad… I get mad at the geese for scaring me, for trying to take my caramel corn…"

William Jr. turned, his face now out of his mother's softness, it was easier to breathe. His eyes were big, so big, and the room seemed to tingle as he absorbed his Daddy's words. So very intently, he listened.

"And I get very, very big…" William's arms reached up and out wide, filling the space, "And I growl at them," his teeth gritted in anger, his eyes like rockets, "And I flap something around…" he grabbed a pillow from the couch across from them and flailed it up and down, "to chase them away. You could use Blanco, or your coat, or a stick. You just need to look big, to scare them away…"

His Mommy shifted under him, nudged him, "Go on, try it," she urged. "I'll try it too," she added.

William put the pillow he had used to flap about and placed it out in front of him, offering a target.

William Jr.'s feet on the floor, his Daddy looked so very big as he stared up to see his focused expression. " _Fight the pillow. Pretend it's the geese_ ," the same voice that William Jr. had heard earlier telling him to scream, when the geese were assailing him, that voice that was from deep inside of him somewhere, and sounded like Mommy and Daddy and him, and it told him, now, so quietly, so quietly that he wasn't really sure he had heard it at all, it told him to fight...

William crouched down, held the pillow out steady in front of William Jr., willing the small, small boy to swing at it.

And then William said to his son, "You have to be strong in your heart, angry and fierce, ferocious and invincible, like a LION in your heart…" And his eyes grew wide watching the change in his Little Man, for the boy focused, like a bullet on that pillow…

Watching on, Julia's thoughts leapt inside her head, seeing William, _imagining him years ago when he jumped off that high, high bridge into the shallow river below, chasing after_ _ **their**_ _ **monster**_ _, James Gillies… and then of him leading, marching forward with his men so courageously, down into the gangs on the docks to arrest the Inspector's attackers, the bloodthirsty O'Shea brothers._ And then, this last image so close to home it hit with a jolt, as she saw him in her mind, _surging forward into the burning building to save her, dousing the Grim Reaper's threatening flames, certain death engulfing her, and he fought it off with a soggy blanket, his silhouette suddenly there,_ " _ **Just a mirage… No, no it WAS him,"**_ her inner-voice told. William Murdoch truly embodied the heart of a lion at times, and a part of her knew there was a weighty, unfathomable importance, a magic, in this transfer she was witnessing, from a father to his son, from _THIS_ father to _THIS_ son…

And yet, it hovered there, " _perhaps a feminine trait?"_ part of her wondered. There was, inside of her, a desperate wishing to the universe, a pleading that her beautiful little boy would be alright, that he would be alright living his life with such a lion heart.

Suddenly, a strange chill running up her spine, twinging her every cell with a mysterious _whoosh_ , _**there was the silentest of whispers**_ , its voice, that of her own mother and her own father and her own voice too, and now, she realized it with an awe-inspired, _huh_ , for there was also William's voice entwined in the tone of the inner voice she heard, _firing off a tangential image of herself sitting upstairs at her vanity holding William's red-heart-leaf in her hands_ , and this voice, her own inner counsel, told her the profoundest of truths, " _ **You too, Julia… you too have a lion heart**_ **,"** and then she remembered herself diving into the cold, salty sea water while they were sinking deep in the bowels of a sabotaged ship to save William… And she knew, she understood, that our hearts grow braver, stronger, grow more powerful because of the people who have loved us, and because of the people we have loved, and she knew, in that moment, that she too had a lion heart, and with it she would do whatever was necessary to save them, to save the ones she loved with all her heart, just as William would.

Her teeth gritted, remembering clearly her rage in the Park today, at those horrid geese. _How dare they hurt her innocent child?_ It had been a fury that boiled in her blood. She would have done _anything_ necessary to save her little child, and she would have _**killed**_ those foul beasts for even trying to hurt him, if she could have, her kicks and her swings meant to be fatal as much as anything else. She figured it had been the same for William, too, at the time. And a part of her felt the slightest pang of regret, for somewhere out there, now, in the cold of night, some of those geese may have been suffering from the injuries those very same blows had inflicted upon them, for surely the first animal she had smashed at, she figured, had most likely ended up bleeding out and dying… Yes, it was true, she, too, had a lion heart.

All that happening so quickly inside of her as she watched on, and she saw their beautiful little toddler son clench his few baby teeth tight and hone every ounce of the juice of his little life into his LION heart, and burst outward from his center as he wound up for the attack, powerful and strong, and that pillow experienced his mighty wrath, mighty, _at least,_ _for a two-year old_.

Pillow defeated, William hoisted his son up into the air victoriously and plopped him on his shoulders. Julia clapped and cheered as he paraded the boy around, and celebration of the child's success was enjoyed by all. Soon, the Murdoch family's self-defense lesson had morphed into roughhousing and laughter and fun, but the message was clear…

 **Sometimes,** _ **if there's enough love**_ **, you'll have a lion in your heart, especially, especially, when you need it most.**

 _ ****And it should be noted for this story, thankfully, that becoming lionhearted can make the nearly impossible possible, and this is most assuredly good, because sometimes, sometimes in life, one will encounter the Tiger, rather than, or even in order to save, the Lady****_

) (


	8. 8: With Tiger Stripes & Leopard SpotsT

The Lady, or the Tiger

Chapter 8: Living with Tiger Stripes and Leopard Spots_T

Pausing, slowing, catching her own image in the bathroom mirror, Julia's mind imagined William standing in the same spot an hour or so earlier. Her exhale was deep and warm, as she pictured him bathed in the ceiling's spotlight, the Sun still not rounded our spinning planet's curve, its pink hues not yet to crack the sky. " _Early Mass_ ," she shook her head marveling at his dedication, " _somewhat rare that he made it to that_ _ **first one**_ _these days,_ " she thought to herself as a devilish, pleasured Mona-Lisa smile grew on her face, reacting to, remembering, the reason he _usually_ missed the _earlier_ service.

 _This morning, William's battle had indeed been formidable, for his wife had gone to bed right there next to him the night before wearing that same silky, taut, tumultuous garment that she had '_ thanked _' him with the night before… after being enchanted by his love-hearts, and seducing him so utterly lusciously downstairs in the low flutteriness of firelight. The lustful wave had captured him with a fierceness that had overflowed with a rushed and insatiable urgency to touch her, deeply, much, much more deeply than was humanly possible, to hold on to her, to have her hold on to him, tighter than two people had ever held on to each other before, to fuse together in the maelstrom, in the tumult, and for him to pledge his undying love to her for all of time._

 _Then, this morning, spurred on by dreaming about the memory of it, his body's sudden push against their mattress in the predawn darkness, minimal, compared to what he experienced as his first powerful thrust of making love to her… in the dream. Yet, that small bump had woken him, leaving him drowning in the lingering sweetness of the dream, mingling, for one… more… delicious… thrust, and a subtle, subtle grunt of ecstatic effort, as he hung in the ripples between reality and his subconscious. So ready, so desperately ready, he imagined, as he lay next to Julia in the black-as-night bedroom, he fantasized about touching her body, the smooth warm silk under his fingers as they sailed the curves of her, and her body reacting to his presence, leaning heavy, dense, backward into him, crushing him with want. Her flesh, in his fingers, the sequestering garment serving to tighten her marshmallowy bosoms within its cocoon as he molded them and jiggled them between his fingers, from behind her. And he heard her breathing change, and he could taste her in his mouth, and then, then, he felt the naked skin of her, first the plump roundness of her derriere as he pressed himself closer, then sliding ever so close to her to bask in the feel of her against his most focused, most honed, throbbing spot, finding her flesh accessible, daring to move in further under the opening in the loose fabric of those naughty, tabooed lingerie bottoms, her lush heat dizzying his brain as he felt the tilt, the pull, of the vortex._

 _The fight back from the fall into her had been epic, William ultimately winning, regaining control,_ not _turning to her,_ not _touching her,_ not _waking her,_ not _making love to her. No… No, he would not. He reached instead to the alarm clock, turning it off, then softly slipped out from under the covers, planted his feet firmly on the floor, stood… walked away. He would go to Early Mass. He had to take the long trip to their Body Farm afterwards – to reset the trap, and to collect the film from the scrutiny cameras, to catch the, now infamous, 'Body-Farm Dumper,' and hopefully to solve the case._

Her mind's eye saw him in the mirror, shaving, the pictured sculpture of William's muscled chest tugging at her womb. The haunting memory of the scent of the white, creamy lather, drifted in, as she imagined she heard it, so clearly as if it were truly happening right there, the close, scratchy sounds of the strokes of the razor cutting across his jawline. " _My God, it was sexy when the man shaved_ ," Julia's head shook, confounded by the strange power of it.

The sneaky urge to smell William's secret Chinese aftershave concoction teased at her, only briefly however, for her yielding to the urge came quite quickly. Holding her breath at first, she admired the unique bottle, popping the lid off of it. Dizzy with the need to breathe, the aroma landed phenomenally hard, flooding the back of her mouth, drenching the core of her brain, heavy and light all at once, cascading a flurry of memories, flickering and sparkling in a waterfall past her innermost being. It must have been all the times he was close enough for her to catch the fiery, tingly scent of him; when they were standing so enticingly close together in the morgue and both focused on a bullet, or some other piece of evidence, in her hand… or waiting to share a look in the microscope… or dancing – _magnificent, the dancing, floating, flying, so very lovely_. Then, almost with a comic thud, the memory played in her mind, of the first time he had 'assumed the position' for her to step into his arms and be dazzled by his dancing skills. The spicy, perfect scent of him arriving before… _most definitely before_ … the blunder, William's clumsy tripping… and awkward grabbing, but because the hitting of William's unique and undeniably delectable smell had been _before_ the blundering, it seemed, it had been the thing about him that had touched her, had affected her, at such a deep, deep level. _How could it be she had loved him so much, even then?_ Then the delightful show of kiss after kiss after kiss after kiss after kiss spilled by, each of the remembered kisses electric and erotic and remarkable. Of course, their very first kiss on the picnic blanket opened the parade, but then such an array… them stealing, sneaking, a kiss in her office at the asylum… another with her clicking off the office light, silhouetting them in the shiny white outlines from the light flowing in from out in the hallway… and then, after watching that racy Hattie Carter show off her lovely legs, William proving to her that ' _those artistic types don't have ALL the fun_ ,' waltzing her into a secluded alley, taking off his top hat and kissing her in public… and finally, after the opera – that particularly golden kiss that had been so stupendous, but now she found it had been tainted with the memory of finding the photo of this delicious kiss in Leslie Garland's terrorizing threatening envelope. She pushed the thought away, only to be flooded by a memory of their kissing, yesterday, on the picnic blanket in the Park, somehow completing the circ…

The little knock at the door drew her attention. _William Jr. was up._ She placed William's bottle of Chinese aftershave down on the counter and went to open the door, and then scoop the child into her arms for a good-morning hug, and spin, and squeeze.

"I smell Daddy," he said.

"You do?" she questioned him, receiving his nod.

"Would you like us to put some of Daddy's smell on you too?" she offered.

"Yes Mommy," he declared, wiggling and squiggling to be put down, and then running lickity-split into the bathroom.

Julia lifted the little boy up to sit him on the countertop. "You know Daddy puts this on after he shaves. When you're grown up you'll need to shave too…"

"Like Daddy!" the little one exclaimed.

Such a warm smile, "Yes, like Daddy," his mother agreed, taking the smallest dab of the manly, Williamy, potion as possible onto her fingers and then spreading it onto her hands to apply it to the boy's soft-skinned neck.

She leaned down close to him. "Mmm, you smell good, Little Man," she told him.

"No Mommy," William Jr. protested, " _Little Man_ for Daddy, NOT for Mommy."

"No?" she giggled softly and shook her head at him.

"No!" he insisted.

"All right then," Julia gave, "You smell very good, my _Little One_ …"

 _She found herself caught, for just the tiniest of moments, in her son's beautiful, big, brown eyes…_

"Is that better?" she asked, smiling when he nodded.

"Good," she answered simply, reminding herself of her husband. "Now, what do you say, we take care of you using the potty, and then we can have a yummy breakfast?"

"With bacon?!" he hoped.

"Yes, with bacon," she promised.

) (

The day was chilly, but delightful. William Jr. and his mother spent most of the morning outdoors. Having noticed that there were still a few reporters hovering by their front gate, Julia decided to stay home, but their backyard was big, and bordered on a lovely patch of woods. There were boundless adventures, and, as they played, exploring, climbing trees, making a tiny boat out of leaves and sticks to 'sail' down the creek, she found herself regretting that they only had this one, magnificent, child, and she felt their little boy was lonely without siblings to romp with, and she regretted, again, not being able to have more children, and now, not even being able to adopt any children.

As they headed out of the rustic shady, twig-crackling, leaf-crunching woods into the light of the grassy backyard, William Jr. remembered his favorite – the swing his Daddy had made for him.

He was in a mad dash before Julia could even call out his name. "Play swing! Play swing!" he declared back to her. The swing was much like a wooden basket, the boy tucked safely in for his flights. But it was too high off of the ground for him to get in and out of without adult help. As a result, he stood under it as it hung down temptingly from the huge maple tree branch, hopping and jumping, as if, somehow, this time, he would get it.

"You'll be tall enough to reach it someday," his mother promised him. " _Unfortunately_ ," Julia kept this part to herself, " _you'll be too big to fit in it when that happens."_ Her mind played up an extension of the thought, imagining, planning, into the future, " _But, you'll be interested in other things by then… maybe burning down sheds or other such as sundry undertakings, like your Daddy was when he was a youngster_."

A little giggle escaped out into the crisp fall air with the thought as she lifted the two-year old up, and he stiffened his legs to fit them through their allotted slots in the wooden swing. It seemed the little one would ride the waves of back and forth, up and down, higher and higher, until infinity, if he could. Amazing, how it brought them both such pure, pure joy.

Later, when William Jr. was playing with his toys in the playroom downstairs, and his mother read a book beside him, he interrupted her, requesting, wanting her to push him in the little toy swing that his Daddy had made for his toy soldiers to play on. Julia came to sit next to him on the floor, wholly boggled by the fact that the boy could not understand the concept of size – well, at least not with respect to HIS OWN size.

"Push me, Mommy," he demanded, as he turned his back to the tiny ten-inch toy and tried to lower his backside down onto the little wooden swing hanging from William's toy 'tree.'

"Mommy…" he complained, his mood turning towards tantruming, his feet taking on the characteristically challenging, rhythmical stomps, "Let me!" he bellowed, "Swing! Swing!"

 _How could it be that he did not see that he does not fit in the small swing, to the point of becoming frustrated, even angry, that his mother would 'not let him?'_ Julia wondered. She ran her mind through her training with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, reminding herself that Freud had characterized the concept of developing a "body ego" in terms of body sensation, functioning, and image… _"This must be a developmental error of the latter,"_ she thought, " _He does not hold, yet, an accurate image of his own size. Amazing, truly amazing_ ," she marveled for a moment, before she moved to model for her young son coping with his frustration. She needed to hurry, for he had already reached the tottering edge of no return for toddler meltdowns, bordering on tears, yelling red-faced, "Play swing! Play swing!" Soon, the only solution would be a stiff drink.

"Let's try again later, shall we?" she encouraged, "We could go outside and play some more on the right-sized swing…?"

"No!" he ranted, "This swing!" he insisted again with a demonstrative stomp. Then, _sending Julia's stomach into instant nauseas dread,_ his face wrinkling towards crying, _her brain anticipating only seconds until the wailing began,_ "Want _**THIS**_ one," he began to fall towards collapse.

"Little One," she had an idea, the change in her tone interesting him, _thank God, he took a breath_ , "Can I show you something?" _She noted he was intrigued. Julia ran household item after household item through her mind, searching for something similar in size to her little son._ "Let's bring the tiny soldier toy with us, so he can swing on the real swing outside," she said, standing, "the soldier doll that fits in the toy swing… Can you fit it in my pocket?" she suggested, opening the pocket at her hip wide enough for him to slip the small toy soldier doll into it.

"Oh," she acted like she just thought of it, "I want to bring one of our pillows outside too. It can make the swing seat softer," she tried to think of a good reason for bringing the large pillow outside to the swing with them.

By the time Julia and William Jr. had ' _played swing'_ with the toy soldier doll (which was so small it fit in his hand and it had kept falling off the big swing), and the pillow (which was too big for him to hold in one hand and it was big enough to become wedged against the sides of the swing, so stuck it on, and it rode the swing well), and her son (who fit the swing perfectly because he was more the size of the pillow than the toy soldier), and then they had gone back inside to try all the same items on the toy swing, she thought she had seen the light go off in William Jr.'s brain. He did not even try to fit himself on the toy swing, barely tried with the pillow, only once, quickly seeing the error of his ways, and, importantly, he no longer begged her to push him in the toy swing, there was that evidence that he had started to grasp the concept of his own body size making it impossible, at least. Unbeknownst to herself, Julia exhaled a huge sigh of relief. She decided she would have a whisky anyway, disaster averted this time, she still longed to unwind.

) (

William arrived home, home from Church and from resetting the booby-trap at the Body Farm. His small family heard the front door and dashed up the stairs from the playroom to greet him.

" _He seems bothered_ ," Julia's inner voice warned with her first sight of him.

William's attention on the large suitcase packed full of scrutiny cameras that he had brought home after exchanging the ones from their home with the ones at their property, he barely gave them a hello. "I want to develop this film immediately…"

"After you say hello to your son and your wife, I presume," Julia corrected, adding, "…perhaps some lunch," with a cautioning eyebrow up at him.

"Of course," he quickly agreed, leaning in to give her a kiss, then crouching down to take William Jr. into his arms and lift him up, and turn him upside down, and bask in the boy's gleeful shrieks, and toss around, his, "Little Man…"

The child begging for, "More Daddy! More!" _Astounding, William noticed in his head, the way Julia was always right._ William finished their roughhousing to hold his little son in a prolonged hug. Unsure of the reason, possibly unconscious of the familiar scent teasing his innermost brain, he felt so very close to William Jr., so very, very aware that the little child was HIS son, HIS.

)

After the film had been developed, William thought that he recognized the man he had caught – trapped " **red-handed** " up in the dangling net high in a tree doused in permanent red stain. _He was not yet aware of the profound irony in the twist on words, particularly that they actually came from a reporter from the past, Paddy Glynn of the Toronto Gazette, aka the Kissing Bandit._ "Perhaps Julia will know him?" he thought to himself as he cleaned up and prepared to go upstairs.

Sitting in the living room reading, William quickly guessed to himself that William Jr. was having his nap. He handed her the best photograph of the intruder.

She was similarly unsure. "He seems familiar. But I must say, William… I do not have warm fuzzy feelings associated with the sight of him. How about you?" she asked him.

William sat next to her on the couch and placed a hand on the photo, turning it to block the shining reflection. His wrinkled corner of the mouth answered her question.

Julia too, could not place where she had seen the man, but unexpectedly, she giggled, praising her husband's devious trap, "Perhaps it's all the dye he's drenched in."

He gave her his ducked down chin, scolding look, up through those gorgeous long, black lashes of his, thrilling her to the bone.

Taking a deep breath first, changing to a rolled-up sleeves sort of approach, she drew the photograph closer. "It feels recent," she elaborated, checking to see him nod.

"Yes," he agreed, "I thought so too."

Another deep breath from her, she would dig deeper. "And there's a feeling of him being a foe to us, dangerous… somehow," she gave all she could at the moment. "Perhaps it will come to me," she encouraged.

"Mm," his simple answer as he put the picture aside. "Well, I guess I'll replace the scrutiny cameras," he told her, slapping his hands to his thighs and then standing.

Julia heard her own sigh, focusing to chase after the meaning behind it. _William seemed… off_. She brushed the worry aside figuring it was just his frustration with not yet figuring out who the man in the trap was, with not yet solving the case.

" _Oh_ ," she thought suddenly, considering the time, " _William Jr. should be up_." She headed upstairs to wake their little toddler son.

)

Placing the last camera back in its hiding place, once again set to catch any intruders coming through the sliding doors onto the patio, William felt an unwanted dread in his gut, for he had noticed earlier when he had traded their house cameras for those up at the Body Farm, that there had been a photo taken on one of the cameras, and he had had to expose it in order to use the camera in the newly prepared booby-trap. And, although he had told himself at the time that it was probably nothing, that the camera had probably just been triggered by a nosey reporter sneaking around their home, trespassing in the middle of the night, going out on a limb to try to get a scoop on all the others… " _Heck, it was probably even that mean-spirited Louise Cherry_ ," he had told himself with a huff. Yet, a part of him down in his gut nagged that it could have been something more treacherous, more insidious, that he should have taken heed, _that he had made a mistake_.

A big sigh escaped. He was bothered. This disgusting feeling about missing something important with this lost photo, added to his discomfort with what he knew he still needed to talk with Julia about because of his discussion with Father Clemmons after Mass earlier, and he ended up stuck there shaking his head trying to push it all away, to cope, finally deciding it would be a welcome distraction to go down and work out with his weights.

)

Going into William Jr.'s bedroom to rouse her Little One, for if he napped much longer he would end up having trouble going to bed later that night, Julia noticed that the baby's window had been left opened. " _That's odd_ ," she told herself as she closed it. She hadn't noticed it was open earlier when she put him down for his nap. " _It must have been opened then… must have been William before he left for early mass, strange though, it had been chilly, why would he have done that?"_ she questioned her reasoning.

)

The family sat at the dinner table, William Jr. still using his highchair. William seemed not to have much of an appetite. To Julia, her husband's food-covered plate was yet another clue that something was definitely troubling him. Twice she had thought he was about to bring up whatever it was that was on his mind, but he must have chickened out, the first time William mentioning instead some unimportant fact – " _oh yes,_ " she remembered, " _that he had picked up some of the Sunday papers for them to read through later,_ " but the second time their eyes had held for a moment, the silence sticky and heavy between them, before he had dropped his eyes away and went back to pushing his food this way and that on the plate.

" _Perhaps some dessert will cheer him up,_ " she thought, deciding not to question him about whether or not he disliked her cooking.

Pie served, she lifted their son out of his highchair and passed him to William, thinking having the toddler on his lap, sharing his dessert with him, would provide some welcomed intimacy and fun. Between the two of them they did finish the treat rather quickly, with William lifting the boy high, commenting on his dirty mouth and needing a cleaning, before his mother dipped a napkin in William's water and wiped off the smudgy messes… wetting grubby hands and fingers too.

The moment his father put the little boy down, his feet hitting the floor, he started a mad dash for the playroom.

His mother called out, "Wait, William Jr.! You need to help clean up."

"No," the typical two-year old reply shot back.

The problem was that Julia found his obstinance to be endearing, her mind picturing the little tyke turning backwards to hurry down the stairs, reverting to his younger stair-tackling methods in his excitement. But when she turned to William, expecting his look of complaint, he was staring down at his plate. His eye met hers, and there was a feeling, like he had decided to push himself to hold his nerve. Inside, a part of her felt dread, hoped he wouldn't have the nerve. The moment passed, however, if he was working to build-up the courage, he had failed once again.

"Toddler bath duty or kitchen cleaning duty?" she gave William the choice.

He sighed, another opportunity to talk with her missed. He chose cleaning the kitchen, to better give him time to think.

)

Finally, after their son was tucked in for the night, the couple hesitated outside the little boy's cracked bedroom door and Julia pushed William to tell her what had been bothering him all day. The wrinkled corner of his mouth revealed the accuracy of her perceptions. Compassion in her tone, she suggested they talk over whatever it was with two cups of warm hot chocolate. The intimacy, her care, the soothing of it caused a deepening in the pull of his eyes, and they stood outside in the hallway for a moment, stuck there together, grateful for each other.

Downstairs, their chairs at the kitchen table moved closer to the shared corner than usual, the closeness allowing for low, heart-spoken voices, Julia made her own worry apparent as she spiked her cup of hot chocolate with a shot of whisky. _She'd made the first move_ , she thought to herself with a subtle sigh, _she had to wait for him now._

"Father Clemmons…" William cleared his throat and barked at himself in his head, " _She has to know. Go On!"_

Julia's brain raced, narrowing down, honing in, " _Not the case, then… Nothing I said… Adopting… It's about adopting!_ " she arrived at the gist, " _Father Clemmons won't be able to help us with the Catholic orphanages. Just another dead end…"_ Julia needed the warm chocolate, the sweet sting of the whisky, taking a sip, hoping it would stop her heart from dropping through the floor, telling herself to stay with his eyes, _his beautiful, beautiful eyes_ , to hold their bond through the storm.

William's head ducked down as he swallowed, starting again, "Father Clemmons said he is not getting a good response at the Catholic orphanages… um, so far anyway, acting as our reference… They are reluctant."

Her courage amazed him as she stepped closer to the flames, "Did he say if they, if his contacts at the orphanages, have said why they are disinclined?" she asked, lifting her cup to her lips for another sip, never losing contact with William's eyes.

 _Now, this was going to really be the hard part. Sometimes it caught him, stung him deep inside, to notice how much there was against them._

Finding he needed to clear his throat… and then swallow again, William's voice still was scratchy when he replied, "The Queens Hotel…" _The combination of heat burning and ringing his ears and chilling dread icing in his veins, threatened to unnerve him_. "And the trial… us admitting publicly to loving each other when you were married to another man… They believe we committed adultery, Julia." The slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth showed his pain. It hurt so, and he struggled with his shame in admitting it.

"Yes," she answered him, "They would likely think that, based on what they know. I'm sorry William. Perhaps we should not hav…"

"I knew what we were doing," he reassured her, finding doing so strengthened him, "I wanted to do it to."

Julia smiled, _a little_ , saw him take a slowed breath. _Good, they were together._

William added, "I told him the truth, that we did not commit adultery, just made it appear so…" William's soft chuckle filled the space between them, his eyes to hers, so sincere, "…that I even brought dominoes and slept on the floor. That we did it to give your husband grounds for a divorce." He took a deep breath, the relief showing on his face. "He believed me," he told her. Another deep breath, then a frown…

She steeled herself, took a deep breath and then asked, "What else?" _For the life her, she had trouble imagining William handling such an uncomfortable conversation as this one that he was describing with Father Clemmons. William Murdoch truly never ceased to amaze her._

He reached over and took her hand, his touch warmed from holding the hot cup, his fingers tenderly rubbing back and forth over her golden wedding ring. "The rest, well, for the most part the same problems we had with the other orphanages. They figure we must be sinning – using birth control…"

She nodded. It was a 'sin' they had been guilty of in the past, to ensure her life, and most people would be unable to fathom that **for her** pregnancy would most likely mean death, had gotten so very close to death with William Jr., and there was a pang of deep, deep fear and possibly remorse in Julia's gut, because the reason for her situation, her 'sterility' as it were, was so much more of a 'sin' than was using prophylactics… and thus the truth of it was so very much worse than what people thought.

William went on, "There should have been more pregnancies than the one… in the four years we've been married… people figure. And some think it's immoral, us wanting to adopt instead of having our own child…" _Suddenly he realized that this one, the one he was about to say, was so directed at Julia that his ears started to screech again,_ "…so you can keep working," he finished the thought.

Julia nodded again. _Not new, these grievances – these complaints, accusations really, not new at least, but terribly unfair because they were untrue, and thus infuriating._

William took a sip of hot chocolate, delaying, feeling nervous. "Father Clemmons suggested… um, thinking it might help with the opinion that you… um, well that you have not been authentic in your conversion to the Catholic Faith…" William observed her eyes gloss with tears, _surprised on some level that it would be_ _ **this point**_ _, this one, which seemed to be the one piercing her heart_. Every instinct in his body rushed to save her.

"Father Clemmons says he knows your soul, Julia. He knows you have a kind and compassionate spirit that loves, and heals, in our world. He truly cares for you, trusts you…"

 _Truth be told, though, and they both knew it. And they even knew Father Clemmons knew it, though it had never been directly said. Julia Ogden did not, could not, wholly believe in God. Yet, she had a profound love and respect for William's belief in God. And she had seen it fill his life in a way she envied and wished for at times, and as a result of William's Faith, she had been lifted and carried through things she believed she would not have survived without him. William Henry Murdoch came with his Faith, and thus, she loved it, cherished it, deeply._

"Did he go so far as to say that we should give up," Julia asked, ripping it to the core, her voice dangerously close to squeaking with her upset.

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth and said, "No. No he did not. He suggested…"

 _William's heart raced and thumped in his chest, taking him off-guard. He had not expected to feel this strongly._

Julia caught it, the change in him, her heart thundering, butterflies stirring in the pause. "Yes?" she urged him forward.

"He suggested that you… um, that it couldn't hurt if you were seen more at Church," he swallowed. _Invested, he wanted to look away, to give her room to react, but he could not. He was mesmerized with anticipation._

Tumult inside her, her answer came quickly, "Then I shall…"

 _And William found a celebration pounded in his chest, surprised at how happy he felt, like a dream had come true…_

"I'll join you on Sundays, and we'll bring William Jr. too," she said.

William's brain trumpeted, surging his breaths, reddening his cheeks, a smile growing, the corners of his mouth twitching trying to hold the emotion back. _**His family, his beautiful little family, living with him in his Faith**_. He tried not to show it, his reaction, his joy, but she noticed.

 _He looked so much like he did when he was waiting for her at the end of the aisle on their wedding day_ …

And Julia Ogden would not say it, but she wished she could give him this, that she could have given it to him all along, and not for these more manipulative reasons, being motivated by the desire to improve their chances at adopting a child, but rather for more authentic ones. In her heart though, she knew… and solidifying it in her psyche she thought, " _No,_ " and importantly, Julia would not tell him this even though she suspected William knew it too, " _this would not be a permanent change."_ She pinched her lips tight and nodded to him, lifted her warm cup of hot chocolate to her mouth with both hands. The swallow of the warm liquor, the sweet chocolate, pushing down her feelings of regret. Her mind worked to console herself, telling her in its guiding inner voice, that she is of service to the world in other ways, that there was value in her contributions to charities, and donations of medical expertise to those in need.

"Good," her husband concluded, "Very good."

)

The couple went to bed early that night, a workday tomorrow. However, rather than turn off the lights and sleep, they each took one of the Sunday papers William had brought home and read through the headlines while lying together in bed. They both loved this kind of time together, they would share bits and pieces, then go back to reading some more.

It was Julia who found Madge Merton's story in the _Toronto Daily Star_. The moment she gasped, William's attention was drawn to her, his own Toronto Gazette dropping down onto his chest.

"William," her voice telling her happiness, her disbelief, "Madge Merton…"

 _And William's mind ran forward at a hundred miles per minute, or more backwards, and he remembered meeting the older woman at the flower shop, and then he remembered telling her – a gossip columnist, no less, about how much he loved Julia, and when they first met, and how he had known since that first moment that he met her that she was the one for him…_

Julia had moved on, so much happening in a heartbeat. "She appears to have written a full-page story… about us." Julia's blue eyes so pale and big and beautiful in the low light of their bedroom lamps, "A _**good**_ one!" her bosom noticeably rising and dropping with her big breath. Julia dropped her eyes back down to the paper, opening it wider so William could see too. He nestled down closer to her, his head sharing her pillows.

The first thing to catch the eye was a large photograph, taking up nearly half of the page, of the two of them, both of them knowing instantly that they had seen this picture before, in the same newspaper, and rather recently. It was the picture taken unbeknownst to them, catching them while in a kiss out at the scene of the most recent murder, a case that fortunately was quick to be solved. Much had been made at the time about how cavalier they were, this strange Murdochian detective and doctor couple, cavalier to such disgusting and disturbing things as crime and murder, the photograph being used as evidence to support the malicious claim. Still, the eye seemed naturally, almost mystically, to get pulled into the photograph, instinctively intrigued by the uncommonness of their intimacy, the bare secrecy of its force.

Julia took a deep breath and began her reading aloud of the story…

"Living with Tiger Stripes & Leopard Spots…"

 _The title so catchy, piquing the curiosity, yet William wondered how Julia had gotten from it that the story would be a "good" one for them, and yet, he, too, felt it._

Her reading continued, starting with the first paragraph…

"It seems that the reporters of the world, along with quite a few others, have been hunting big cats in the crime-solving world, particularly Murdoch's, as of late. The ripple in bloodthirst started when word of the couple's failed attempts at adopting a second child began to be pursued, and worsened when the rumors were verified. However, the tsunami really hit when a body was dumped at their rare, and some would argue, macabre, Body Farm…"

Julia paused in her reading to look at William, who nodded. Madge Merton's use of the word "hunting" spurring some hope that Julia's comment about it being a "good" story for them may end up, not only being true, but the story had the potential to also be significant. There was a feeling that, perhaps, the tide was turning.

Back to reading, she went on…

"Now, the author of this story, I, Madge Merton, would argue that it is always a shame when such strong, elegant, majestic creatures as lions get slaughtered for pleasure, but to me it is even worse, outright monstrous, to kill such scarce and wonderful creatures as tigers, and even more uncommon, leopards. These big cats are not only infrequently encountered, but further, their unique traits make them arguably magical. Who except out God Almighty would ever have dreamed up the idea of putting elaborate stripes or spots on such graceful creatures – and yet, there they are, for all the world to see! Well, they are there provided that these noteworthy and striking creatures are not driven to extinction by the world's madness?

Recently, this paper published a story with a photograph of Detective Murdoch and his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden – this photograph, taken in the Park, at a crime scene, a murder victim lying flat-out in the background, knife sticking up gruesomely into the air from the dead body. Unexpectedly, particularly with the aforementioned in the background, the couple had been captured in a remarkably tender embrace – a sparkly, romantic, silhouette of a kiss. The take on the picture in that earlier article was that it revealed the Murdoch's strangeness, not just hinting but rather directly saying that this couple was not to be trusted because they were odd, because they were different.

Yet, in my humble opinion, the ones in this story who are truly _**not**_ to be trusted are the reporters, so stuck in their frenzy, smelling blood, crazed to the point of behaving in illegal, not to mention immoral, ways in order to destroy this couple, in order to win the hunt. This insane cruelty has gone beyond the point of being fathomable. Why, just Friday night a reporter from a rival paper became netted in a trap Detective Murdoch had set to catch the Body-Dumper killer at the Murdoch Body Farm. This reporter was caught in the act of attempting to dump a fake body on the couple's property, all to push public outrage over the edge and to force the Murdoch's to close their Bod…"

Julia's reading halted.

William's sudden gasp the result of having had the light-bulb go off in his head, stopping Julia's words abruptly, causing her to gasp too, their two quick minds hurling towards naming the man of whom Madge Merton wrote.

Simultaneously, all the sounds announcing at once…

Julia declared, "That older man, from the Toronto Gazette…"

And William exclaimed, "Charlie Masters! I knew it!"

And the newspaper's crackly crinkling noise wrinkled in the ears, as Julia's excitement slapped the pages temporarily closed to allow the two of them to huddle closer together to share their thrill.

Julia's eyes bright, twinkling, she said, "Yes, in the photograph from the scrutiny camera at the farm. Of course. But I can't believe he'd go that far, William. He's a legendary journalist…"

William nodded, but Julia noticed a change come over his expression, his jaw tightening, " _Angry?_ " she wondered, _quickly deciding not, for there was a familiar focus in him that she had seen so often_ , and with that thought she knew that her husband was now chasing after a clue inside his wondrous brain. He spoke while his inner journey began, adding, "Yes he is well-known, but dogged, determined, Julia. It is because of his relentless pursuit of getting the story at any cost that Charlie Masters became as famous as he is."

 _William's mind raced…_

He and their handyman, Jake Castern, had found goose feathers in the red dye stuck to the net up in the tree, surely the evidence left there by the culprit, whom they now knew to be Charlie Masters, before he had cut his way free of the net, and they had also found similar goose down feathers on the other side of their Body Farm border fence. And then he saw it as it likely had happened, in that odd, floaty light of William Murdoch's honed imagination, _Masters throwing a fake body, one made with feather pillows, over their fence, before the reporter stepped up onto one of the posts to crawl over the fence after the body, setting off the trap, being catapulted up from the nets hidden under the leaves on the ground_. " _ **Oh**_ ," his brain hollered out silently in its surprise, for then thoughts split-off down multiple tracks, _so fast, so very, very fast_ , and yet somehow William was still able to think of one, and then the other, and yet another, all at lightning speed. " _But what if it were_ _ **not**_ _a fake body? That would mean that Charlie Masters was the kill…"_ then interrupting himself, " _ **Paddy Glenn! Paddy Glenn! He was a reporter!"**_ And a flash of memory played in William's mind, _of Paddy Glenn intensely watching as William loaded the dye-packs into the bags of money to set the trap for the bandit in the bank vault, Glenn even coining the term for how the Kissing Bandit was to be caught… "Red-handed," that's what he had said…_ And then, then the coup de grâce, for William's brain reminded him that, _"In the end, it turned out that it_ _ **was**_ _Paddy Glenn,_ _ **that it was the reporter himself**_ _, who had been the Kissing Bandit, all along!"_

Julia had watched William's face, and waited for his eyes to meet hers again, to reconnect, waiting for him to have come back from wherever it was that he goes. " _There he is_ ," she noticed, then rushed to ask him, "What is it William?"

"The killer, it could be Masters," he replied, excited about the idea, optimistic that the case was going to be solved. His own caution and doubt hitting just after he said it, as he saw it register on Julia's face as well, her getting the words out first.

"William," she cautioned, her lips dipping into a frown, "I'm not so sure."

He agreed, "Nor I." He would elaborate, though. "Well, Masters obviously knows his way around our property, and is capable of sneaking in and out undetected, if not for the recently set booby-trap. And, well…" _And suddenly William felt such grief and sadness that it stalled him there in his tracks. He imagined, remembered, Ruby Ogden, and then the two of them, Ruby and Julia, begging him to go to a ridiculous costume party, a "Wonderland Party," and Julia being about to marry Darcy, and himself framed for murder, and Constance Gardner, and then getting Julia's letter from George,_ _ **and the hurt, the unbearable, unbearable, awful hurt**_ _, letting her marry someone else despite knowing that she loved him… It had all happened around that same time, the Kissing Bandit case… and all of this other turmoil…_

"William?" Julia asked.

"Hmm?" he felt so disoriented.

She cupped his cheek, her worry showing.

His exhale washed over her, fluttered a curl. "I was going to say that it was a reporter, after all… Paddy Glenn, also ironically of the Toronto Gazette, who ended up being the Kissing Bandit," he explained.

"Yes," she nodded, seeing the connections, "Yes, that is true."

It was quiet for a moment, each of them thinking it through.

William spoke up first, now more skeptical, "It would not explain the goose down feathers that Jake Castern and I found though, in the net and on the property. More likely it was as Madge Merton says there," his eyes glancing down at the paper, "a fake body rather than a real one that Masters intended to dump."

Julia added, "And, if Charlie Masters were the killer, I doubt he would have been so brazen as to actually dump _**another**_ real body at our farm. He'd have to know there was more scrutiny there now, now with all this being in the headlines every day."

"I suppose you're right," William gave, disappointedly. "Still," he planned, "I'll have to interrogate him – charge him with trespassing, at least."

She leaned close and kissed him, causing him to wrinkle his face at her admitting to the anticlimax he felt with it all, the gesture making her chuckle.

"I do so love you, William Murdoch," she told him.

"And I you," he replied, his eyes straying back down to the newspaper in her lap. "What else does it say?" he asked.

Julia read on…

"A fellow reporter from this paper sent me this photograph…" _and both William and Julia reoriented to remember the story Miss Merton was telling about their photograph that had been taken of them kissing at the crime scene._ He told me he sent it to me because he knew I was interested in any photograph of this particular couple in a romantic pose. Clearly, this photo has that, the detective and his pathologist wife caught by the camera in a silhouette of a soft and passionate kiss. But, one can't help but notice, that along with them in the frame there lies on the ground behind them, a dead body, a victim of a grisly murder, the knife stiffly erect, sticking straight up into the air, right out of the dead man's chest. It has been stated that no other couple in the world except for this one would ever be so unaffected by death, and by such gruesome and horrendous murders as this. How can anyone, yet alone two, bright, vibrant individuals such as these two, feel romantic at such a time, in such a place, as this? And yet, there they are, the couple we have come to see as being strangely passionate and nerdy, and being madly in love, our storybook, fairytale couple, "Toronto's Favorite Couple." Each of them odd, it's true, but odd is just another way of saying unique. And surely there is no denying that each one of them has an elegance to them, each one of them possesses a brilliant mind, has a determined personality, is brave, is willing to stand up for, and fight for, what they believe in, for what they believe will benefit all mankind.

And I feel I must point out that what is most remarkable about this couple, what made us love them in the first place, was that somehow these two strange individuals found each other. For, it is TOGETHER that they are truly enchanting. And I say to you, Toronto, that asking them to be different is no more ludicrous than asking a tiger to be without his stripes, or a leopard to live without her spots. I urge you to look harder at this picture. Take in the whole view. Surely, you cannot miss it. This couple is profoundly… wonderfully… beautiful. It's right there before your eyes, if you open them wide enough to see it – we have been graced by Murdoch Magic, my fellow Hogtowners. I say let us love them _because_ they are exceptional, rather than villainize them because they are not like us. Let them live happily with their tiger stripes and their leopard spots. And let us appreciate them, learn from them, become better people because we have been inspired by them. Much better, I say, to celebrate their tiger stripes and their leopard spots."

Julia closed the paper and awed, "That was quite something, William."

"Indeed," he joined her in a smile.

)

 _Julia's subconscious venturing to imagine being in the confessional booth with Father Clemmons_ , she rolled over to face William in the sudden blackness after they had each put the newspapers away and pulled the cords on their lamps.

"William," her secretive whisper came, "Do you want to fornicate?" Julia seductively asked him, her breath sultry and luring in his ear. The waves of her motions caused the mattress to dip and ripple sinking their two bodies closer together. "You know, husband, it is not a sin, now that we are married," she coaxed.

He rolled her onto her back, taking control, their breaths growing rapid and fierce and their bodies growing harder and weaker at the same time, a rhythm building, and he kissed her, so velvety soft, then letting her go, to take a nibble, the hunger, the heat, building.

"No. No, it's no longer a sin," he agreed, lust scratching his throat, pulsating its tone deeper, and lower.

Breathless, a few moments later, having had thought of what it would have been like if he had known how powerful their lovemaking was to be, back before they had married, he said, "Fortunate though…"

 _She felt his cocky smile against her neck…_

"…that I did not know… before, before we were married, how much..." but suddenly words seemed to fly away from him, to whirl away, with his current dizzying wild need for her, and his dumbfounded, unbelievable, unbearable, magnificent absolute LOVE of fornicating with this delicious woman. He would try again to express it, in between his mouth's kisses and nips, "If I had known, what we would have," his voice so rushed and intoxicating, "…when we … I would not have been able to…"

"Nor would I," Julia interrupted him, "Nor would I."

 _And fornicate they did, deep, and long, and hot, this extraordinary lovemaking just another exceptional characteristic of the Murdoch's… an integral ingredient in making their sole and outstanding tiger stripes, and leopard spots._


	9. 9: Being CAT-burgled T

The Lady, or the Tiger

Chapter 9: Being CAT-burgled?

There would be fallout, Julia knew it, when they got home, fallout from what had happened at the Ball. William was not only silent, but even more dire, he was stewing and sulking, and he had been doing so from before the time that they had even taken their leave of the big Toff Dance. Julia knew why. She had been quite taken with a handsome new face to appear at the party, an attractive novelty on the Toff scene, a Mr. Neil Catfrey. And, she had responded to the man's flirting. Worse, she had even dared to flirt back, dancing with Neil Catfrey **twice** , at one point checking to see if William noticed them, seeing that he did, _for exquisitely, setting her aflame with butterflies in her core,_ she could tell that William was watching her out of the corner of his eye, pretending not to be bothered, surrounded by adoring females himself, before Julia agreed to a second dance with the other man.

In silence, they had come in the door, then thanked Claire-Marie for watching over William Jr. so late and said goodnight to her. Without a word or a glance, William went up to their bedroom and began to gather up his pajamas and bedding for the couch. Julia followed him, watched him, her panic rising inside of her.

Blocking their bedroom door, though he had not moved towards it yet, she asked bluntly, "Is it because I danced with Neil Catfrey?"

"You did more than dance, and you know it Julia," he replied without a look, unable to completely mask his anger.

The panic surged, and reason, the ability to think began to swirl away with its pounding and thrashing in her ears and the spinning nausea in her stomach. "I… I um," Barely able to hear it, her inner-voice guided, " _Admit to it. Be honest_." The words gushed out, "I wanted to make you feel jealous…"

With that, William's busy packing-up halted, his gorgeous eyes flying, bolting to hers. Such emotion there it threw her off balance, sucked and pulled at her with astounding force.

"Why!?" he screamed it, arms wide, then begged, "Why would you do that?" There was a subtle shaking, _denying_ , of his head. _Disbelief, pain_. He needed to look away, yet stuck, his eyes held, and she soaked it in. Her face changed, registering the hurt, and he could no longer withstand it. William turned back to packing for his night on the couch, and for the next morning outside of their bedroom. His actions less dramatic now, defeated instead.

He would tell her, or tell the room, for he utterly refused to acknowledge her existence, "All I felt was not good enough, utterly inadequate, insecure… and furious, Ju…" He stopped midway through the word, refusing to say her name, and stepped to the doorway, eyes down, waiting, _she noticed his strained breathing_ , waiting for her to move out of his way.

The look on his face had torn her heart open, so desperate and pained, and betrayed. Now, she heard it in his voice, her mind sending up the picture of it happening, _and she thought…_

 _He thought, too, for a moment…_

 _He might cry_. Unbearable, he ripped away. " _Downstairs! Downstairs_ ," William felt her following him, " _Get away. Just get away…"_ He hurried down to his workroom, _feeling he would surely vomit. Feeling he was going to explode. Disgusting, so disgusting, to feel this way_. His teeth clenched together with a force he was sure they could not withstand without breaking, the sheer tension of it throbbing his head into pounding. There was nothing else, no other way to cope, _he needed to move…_

Surprised when William did not banish her upon arriving at the couch, instead throwing the bedding down on it and then turning on his heel, almost bumping headfirst into her, Julia stood in the wake of it all and watched him leave the living room all together, then turn and go down the stairs. She hesitated there, helplessness flooding in, her brain hurrying to figure, " _He'll go down to work out with his weights…"_

So distressed, so very, very distressed, William tore into his workroom, desperate to begin his workout routine, _to utterly destroy his workout routine_ , to burn away the pain and the fury… and the hurt underneath it all. Suddenly noticing that he was still dressed in his tuxedo, the realization only serving to push his anger over the edge. He punched the work table, not even aware of the injury it had caused to his hand. Rapidly, rushed, William ripped off his tuxedo, got down to only his underwear. The pile of expensive clothing left in such a state, _a state he would normally find to be abhorrent… for it to be left heaped there as such,_ lured his stare with its oddness. Half of his discarded clothing huddled on the edge of the worktable, and his black, shiny shoes poking out from under the other half of the pile on the floor, William fought the urge to pummel and kick at the Ball-associated garments.

)

" _Whiskey_ ," Julia's brain tempted her. But she had already imbibed in quite enough alcohol as it was, at the Ball, and so she restrained the urge to quell her uneasiness with the elixir. She would give William some time, some time to work-off a hefty dose of his overflowing energy, before she ventured down to try to talk it through with him again. She sat down next to William's pile of blankets and his pillow, and she felt it bubbling up inside of her, hot behind her eyes, swallowing the threatening eruption of it down. _She would not cry. She was a grown woman, and she had made a mistake, and she would fix it._ The image haunted her once more, of William's wounded face. The only way to stop the tears would be to take action, and with that, Julia bolted up and headed downstairs.

Rhythmical grunts and metallic clunks spilled out through the workroom door as she stepped into the light of his haven. " _It was a good sign_ ," she thought, _that William had left the door opened_. Julia reminded herself that William would want to end this fight as much as she did. Yet, her protective instincts took over as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and leaned against the doorframe at the border of the room, and watched as William struggled mightily with what was clearly much more weight than he usually used. _He would be sore,_ the doctor in her told. And then such pang in her chest, as her subconscious told her that he would be sore emotionally as well, possibly for quite some time, because of what she had done. The guilt of it was agonizing, and Julia steeled against it.

After a time, the workout routine taking him to change positions and stress a different set of muscles, Julia spoke up, forcing the hesitance and worry out of her voice. "William… You must know you are not the only good-looking man in the world," she said, a part of her congratulating herself on her success at sounding nonchalant.

 _Nothing._

"Obviously, each of us at times, being only human, will find someone else to be attractive," she argued, sounding, she thought, logical and calm.

Steam rose in his head, absolute fury with the foreboding thought, " _She had better not bring up the waitress_ ," his teeth grinding down hard, his tightening jaw being the only outward sign that he had reacted to her words at all, the beat of the gravity-defying weights maintained, even the blasting, exhaled sounds of his exertion keeping up the tempo.

 _Still nothing_ , Julia's angst goaded her.

Considering running through his list of transgressions, Julia thought the better of it, instead taking a different tack, "William, you can't doubt that I find you extremely attractive. Think about how absurd that would be, I mean considering… considering our sex-life?"

 _And still, nothing._

 _Take a deep breath_ , the advice came from within her. Now, Julia Ogden was a wise woman, and she paused there, recognizing that she had made quite a mess of things, and accepting that mending it was not going to be easy. And she knew that the only way to repair such severe damage was to dig down as deep as she could go and find the truth, and then to be brave enough to speak it. So, she replayed the night… arriving again at that same particular moment, when Neil Catfrey had asked her for a second dance, and she had glanced over at William, and she had turned back to the fetching man, the intriguing stranger, who was trying so very hard to be cavalier and at the same time to charm her, and she had said, with a coy wiggle, "Why, I'd be delighted, Mr. Catfrey." Oh, there was absolutely no doubt… _Yes, yes. She had flirted, and she had wanted William to see her doing so._

Regret seized her, tears pooling in her eyes, and she stared over at the man she loved more than life itself… for a moment, watching him shove, and push, and hurt himself with his huge efforts lifting his overloaded weights in the darkest hours of the night, desperately trying to cope with the pain of feeling worthless, and she felt completely awful. She would need to tell him that she regretted it, but she would need to tell him much, much more than that if they were going to truly be alright. She would need to tell him **why** she had done it, and that would be so much harder, for she in the end that she did not know why she had done such a horrible thing, especially to him.

" _True, Neil Catfrey was far beyond handsome, but of course, so was William…_ " And then she remembered the feeling inside of her at the height of it, Catfrey bringing her a glass of wine, having noticed that hers was empty, while she had stood with William. So bold, brash really, such an act on Catfrey's part. And she had watched William with her subtle side glances, watched him grow jealous, his jaw locking, his fists curling, while she giggled, and tilted her head, and even wiggled seductively at Catfrey's compliments and jokes. The more jealous William became, the more euphoria flooded through her veins…

Unexpectedly the intrusive thought came as she remembered the feelings that had been flowing through her at the time, _so public, so public!_ _She had noticed that most every woman in the room had been looking at her… not gawking at William, as they usually did_ , as was the usual routine at such an affair. Commonly, after ogling her good-looking husband, the other women in the room would turn to consider her with a sort of disparaging, competitive, measuring lens. _No, not tonight. These women tonight, these snooty Toff women, they were looking at her in new way, with awe, for she, Julia Ogden, the odd one, the unaccepted one, the one they invariably instinctively rejected,_ _ **she**_ _had won the two most gorgeous men at the Ball!_

She swallowed, weakened by the self-discovery, and sat herself down on a stool at his workbench. Gathering her strength, she called his name.

 _There was a softness, a resolution and a promise, in the sound of her voice._

William's ceaseless, self-battering motions with his weights stopped. Only his chest, rising and falling, with his fast, powerful breaths.

 _Silence_ , he came to sit next to her.

Julia started out with her voice low, drawing him nearer, getting him to tilt towards her. "I got swept away by the power I felt, William, having a strikingly good-looking man such as you on my arm, so coveted as that is…" here she paused, watched his eyes to see if he understood… if he accepted what she was saying – accepted that _**he**_ was a coveted man, a desirable man. _And oh, she saw it_ , although it was ever so slight… William had nodded. A small smile at the corners of her mouth, _unlike him to be so immodest in matters of his own sexual attraction_ , Julia went on, "And also having another man as sought after by those of the female persuasion as is Mr. Catfrey, to have him flirting with me so boldly, right in front of you, and I just… selfishly… I'm so sorry. It was selfish of me, William. But it was just such a rush, being wanted by both of you, and it made me feel so… so powerful, I guess…"

A memory flashed through her mind, of Ruby. Puzzled, for it seemed irrelevant, but then she understood. So many times in her life, men had become enamored with Ruby only to hardly notice her, or even outright reject her because they took her self-assuredness as an insult, as a personal affront to their manhood. And then, a particular memory played in Julia's mind, and with it an unreasonable, shocking sensation of sinking fear, as she remembered Constable Crabtree telling her, so reluctantly telling her, so long ago, for George Crabtree knew it would devastate her – somehow, even then, George knew, that Ruby's, that her little sister's, absconding away with William, that Ruby's wooing him, would collapse her whole world. _My God, the strength it had taken her back then to fight back_ , to go to that restaurant where Ruby had taken him, and to get up the nerve to try to get him back, the whole thing being so absurd, for she had never thought of herself as HAVING William to lose in the first place, at least not at the time.

Julia's eyes, _stunning_ , settled deeply into his…

"William… I, uh. Most of my life I never felt I was particularly appealing… to men, um in a sexual way. I knew I was pretty enough, but I lacked the flirting skills, the seductiveness, needed to be alluring to men… Remember, I even had to take dance lessons, um, before I felt confident with you, that first time, at the Dinosaur Ball. I was just different somehow. I had always been so tall, and… well, there was Ruby…" Julia shook her head and her eyes dropped away, "and men always flocked to her so…"

Interestingly, the same image flickered through William's mind as had just passed through Julia's, him seeing himself and Miss Ruby at the restaurant table, and him telling Julia's little sister, who was clearly flirting with him, that there was someone who he found intriguing in his life, and then Julia, _the intriguing one herself_ , showing up and taking them by surprise, and the two sisters fighting over him. And he realized, that although he had felt terribly uncomfortable about their jealousy of each other over him at the time, remembering being grateful to be rescued by George, he also felt a surge of this strange ' _power'_ Julia seemed to be describing now.

As Julia's eyes lifted and refocused, William realized she had continued, and he worked to catch hold of her words once more.

"I had always figured I'd end up an unmarried professional woman… out on my own in the world, or perhaps that my father would have convinced some man or other from a proper family to marry me, and that I would most likely have given in to my father's wishes… eventually… perhaps…"

 _To William, it did not make sense that Julia felt this way. It was so obvious that she was incredibly attractive, and not just to him, but to so many other men as well._ Abruptly, a deluge of memories flooded in, man after man parading through William's mind as they each made their sexual interests in Julia known to her, right before his very eyes. First was from tonight, that slick Neil Catfrey bringing her a drink, and then, _William's skin beginning to crawl_ , remembering Terrence Meyers tilting his hat at her, and dropping his eyes to travel up and down Julia's body, blatantly, obviously… interested. Then, _and this one infuriated him_ , James Pendrick, _supposedly a friend_ , but when under the influence of his wild drug, dipping his Julia back into a passionate, romantic kiss! _My God, it seemed endless._ There was that Inspector from France… Marcel Guillaume, the man's eyes twinkling at Julia as he kissed her hand and noted her beauty in combination with her accomplishments and her clear competence as a doctor… And even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – he had taken quite an interest. _Endless, thoroughly endless, the images kept on._ There was that slimy H.G. Wells, and his disturbing Eugenics Society – ironic, for Wells had actually seemed to choose Julia OVER Ruby! And then, _and the flood of emotions with this one caught him off-guard, William suppressing an urge to gasp, feeling not only jealous, but also furious, and so terrified and helpless and guilty with the memories of it,_ that deceptive and sneaky and vile Detective Scanlon, at first so rude to Julia, and then suggestive with her, asking her out on a date, and, _William's heart raced remembering rushing to save her and finding out what had happened_ , the depraved man had tried to gut her, _my God, he remembered it - he'd almost lost her forever_ , the villain nearly slaying her if not for Julia's own skills in surviving, surviving without his help…

She had continued, William catching the end of her next sentence, "…awkward, and unwilling to flatter. My father called it stubborn, strong-willed." Swallowing, shaking her head, for she knew her point was unclear, and it was harder than she had thought to say it, and so she pushed, "It was a bit overwhelming, tonight. And I got caught up in it, in having all those people, most of whom have always held such a… well, not necessarily a negative view of me, necessarily, but at least a somewhat dismissive one. True, they may see me as competent, smart even, as a doctor, but along with that I am believed to be a rebel, and a pistol… and just, well, not what they consider to be a very good woman… not a very desirable woman…"

Listening to her William heard the battle raging inside of him, part of him wanting to hold onto the anger and the hurt she had caused him, but another part of him knew, knew down to his very soul, that these very things that she spoke of were not only true, but they were much of the reasons that his heart had fallen so hard for her in the first place. And he could see… _Truth be told, he experienced much the same things himself…_ And he could see how it would hurt to be seen in such a light, even though he, and he believed Julia too, would be embarrassed to admit that they could be hurt by these contemptuous opinions from others. And because he had empathy with all this, he also understood, deeply, the pull she must have felt with being able to prove them all wrong.

 _This is when Julia decided she would risk it_. She needed to know, so she reached out and she touched him, touched his face from across the divide between them, from her stool to his, slipped her fingers along his jaw, his cheek. And he did not reject her, he did not pull away, did not reach up and stop her, and the relief of it forced a heavy exhale from her. Astoundingly grateful, in that moment, _for he would let her, let her apologize. He would forgive her_. The emotion of it swelled tears in her eyes as she whispered to him, "I'm so sorry, William," and her heart filled with the heat of healing, and she loved him so, for he responded to her gestures, her apology, with a wrinkled corner of his mouth, _and she knew, she knew that they were O.K._ She leaned in and kissed his lips, then trailed a... few… more… little… kisses along his jawline. The day-long stubble of him stirred her insides with arousal, but it also reminded her how late it was. _Fortunately_ , the welcomed reminder came, they had each taken the next morning off knowing that the Ball would run very late into the night.

"I think you need a shower," she told into his ear, the taste of the salt of him tingling in her mouth.

"Yes," he said, standing.

One more thing to tell him, Julia stood as well and tucked her arm in his. As they walked up the stairs together, Julia accompanying him while he closed up the house for the night, she told him, "I must say, William, I do feel very sexy with you… And I have felt so ever since I met you. It's like knowing you found me intriguing lit a fire in me. It wasn't the first time I'd felt it, um, once I met you, I mean. I had felt like I was sexually attractive once before… with the man with whom I became pregnant…"

Julia joined him in the shower, the steamy heat of it, the soothing touch of the warm water and the soapy caresses, and then the kindling, lust-stirring sensations of his slippery naked hard muscly body sliding along her creamy-soft naked one, repaired their bond more fully. She wanted William to remember, _in his bones_ , how much she loved him, wanted him, finding just the right words before she uttered them to him, her voice mingling into a secret whisper with the spilling over of the rushing water in his ear, "You are the one for me – my match, William Henry Murdoch… You and only you…"

Julia's use of _his own words,_ the same words that he had used so many times to describe how he had felt about her from that very first moment that they had met, and too, the exact same words used by the gypsy fortuneteller as she had read him his fortune as told by her mystical, magical Cards all those many, many years ago, registering deep in his core, _for he did know it was true, they were a perfect match for each other in every way, it was written in the stars, as much as were the constellations of Orion and Pleiades and the Big Dipper._

It had been awhile since the Murdoch's had made love in the shower, and their subsequent lovemaking this night more than made up for it, their steamy passions flaring, yet controlled, controlled enough, making it last such a lusciously long, long time. The only hurry came afterwards, cutting short their warm, glowing, luminous recovery, the hot-water heater running out of water abruptly, racing them into rinsing away of the suds in cold, icy, breath-stealing splashes, and then jumping out to snuggle into, and tenderly rub each other dry under, their fluffy, warm, comfy towels.

Battle weary, healed, thoroughly and deeply loved, and freshly clean, sleep was delicious and came quickly.

) (

Odd for a workday, the soft morning light already filled the room when Julia roused. She had been so strongly aware of William's presence next to her as she had slept, powerfully grateful for it in her sleep, and now, before she had even opened her eyes, the light through her eyelids telling of the lateness, the memories of last night, complete with their whole spectrum of ups and downs, ran through her mind. Uncommonly warm for an early winter morning, she could feel the air on her bare flesh, and she remembered the shower, and she imagined William lying next to her naked, he too having had thrown off the covers in the night, and she remembered she had heard Claire-Marie earlier, on the other side of their bedroom door, stopping William Jr. from knocking and waking them, and then hearing the considerate nanny taking their beautiful son downstairs to play, while Eloise cooked them all a delicious breakfast, and she could smell it – French toast, her favorite, and she felt so very, very happy.

Rare, such an opportunity, to admire, examine, **adore** her husband in the nude. Julia basked in the chance, rolling herself stealthily onto her side, pressing her elbow down into the mattress and resting her chin in her hand. _Oh, she perused_. Well-defined muscles, such a chiseled jawline, and those amazing thick, long black eyelashes of his, and it took all she had not to touch. William Murdoch was truly something, plenty of scars though, nearly every one of them having a memory associated with it… the one so close to his heart from an arrow, another on his right forearm, from falling from a building fire escape, at the time of that one William had been with Enid. Her eyes traveled up his arms, biceps, deltoids, over to those delicious pectoral muscles… Then the flash came, so utterly scrumptious, the memory of William using those big strong muscles to hold her in place, to force her back into the cold, hard, shower wall last night, his solid, rippled chest pressing, squashing, mushing, her bosoms with a pounding, pounding rhythm, pinning her in place while he robustly, forcefully, made love to her. Instantly Julia's womb tweaked and twisted and ached, so deeply, with urgent yearning to pull him in with all her might…

 _ **LOUD! STARTLING! SCREAMING!**_ The telephone rang from its place on William's nightstand, scaring the bejesus out of both of them. William jumping up, disoriented, from his sleep… Julia flinching, gasping, prompting him to instinctively try to soothe her, to reach for her, to pull her into his arms to calm her.

"It's alright William," she reassured him, she tried to ground him, "It's just the phone."

"Shh," her whisper close to his ear as she pressed her hand against his chest to push him back down onto the mattress again. She reached over him to his nightstand to pick up the phone receiver, crawling over him and draping her midsection over him, to answer it. Julia had, quite intentionally, placed William's secret, and favorite, asset of hers prominently, unavoidably, in his lap, knowing he would find it unbearably enticing. She too was naked, from their romantics after the party last night, and she watched him, felt him, react to her bare body out of the corner of her eye as she spoke to the constable on the other end of the phone line. _Oh, William was taken, undoubtedly taken_ , by her derriere, the noticing bringing a softly devilish smile to her face, the shape of her mouth affecting her speech sufficiently that she was sure that William was aware of her watching of him.

"Robbery? I'll tell him…" she said through the Mona-Lisa-smile into the phone, noticing the, _oh so buttoned-down_ _William Murdoch leaning over sideways to get a better view of her backside_. "Just a second, constable, I'll get a pen," she said, shifting, lifting her hind-end up higher, _such a sexy arch in her back as she did so,_ stretching to reach the drawer and take out the pen. _Irresistible_ , William's hands took what they wanted, sliding down the curve of her back, then up over those gorgeous round…

And Julia heard it, his aroused breathing raging, and so, so tiny, his steamy little moan. It sent thunderbolts to her womb. Her head growing soupy, she forced herself to listen to the constable, to write down the address… with the pen, " _Use the pen, Julia… on the paper._ "

"Isn't that the Banner's address?" she asked the constable on the other end, fortunately sensing some semblance of regaining her composure, all the while William indulging in her 'gift,' and his own arousal becoming quite prominent underneath her.

She hung up the phone and slid herself over him to lie on top of him and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him as she said, "There was a robbery…" another kiss, hands exploring lower, "…last night," another juicy kiss, and a nibble to his earlobe, "…after the Ball," _she couldn't take it anymore_ , she covered his soft, soft, moldable, delicious lips, and pushed into him, so slippery, and velvety, and lush… Julia broke off the kiss, that delectable tiny _'click'_ sound of their lips pulling apart, and then her breath, hot, in his neck. "It was at the Banner's," she said, _fairly certain William would not know who the Banner's were_. Wanting the taste of him in her mouth, Julia seized his vulnerable flesh and began to suck him in, with a rhythm, a rhythm that called to his most primal instincts to rise up to her. Her breaths surging, flaring, she stopped the torture, "I have the address…" soft, the kiss to his ear, "You are to go at once, detective."

He asked, his voice cracking as he did so, sounding disappointed, with a hint of a pout, _Julia finding it endearing_ , "So, no body then, doctor?"

She shifted again to lay next to him, sliding her long silky thigh up over him, flirting, lips close, "No detective, no body, so no need for a pathologist, I'm afraid."

"A part of me always preferred murders… because of the pathologist," William's fingers were in her hair, "I've always felt a little guilty about that," he admitted with his customary corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle, prompting her to giggle.

Blunt, frank, as Julia could be at times, she suggested, "You are quite ready…" she glanced down at him, low down, _to the part of him that was throbbing, and surging with lust_ , caught by the sight of him.

He lifted her chin to bring her eyes back to his. His expression scolded her.

 _Oh, how she wanted this._ "We can be quick. You don't even have to kiss me," she offered.

 _William's devilish heart jumped. Given the opportunity, he intended to tease her mercilessly about this particular statement, and to resist kissing her at all costs, as well._

Sarcastically, he poked, "Oh, I see. And _**that**_ will surely save us time, then… my not kissing you?"

He pushed her down into mattress, eyes fixed solidly to hers, and he moved over on top of her.

 _Julia's womb jerked with want._

"Yes," she answered defiantly, her voice weakening, her whole body weakening. "William Murdoch is known to take his time with his luscious kisses," she explained further.

 _Time stopped for a moment, with the power of the gaze between them._

Julia waited, waited for _HIM_ to open her legs, for _HIM_ to take what he wanted, wholly unable to stifle her moan once he did so.

 _Her womb flipped, and squeezed and begged for him._

As he positioned himself and then checked cockily, "No kisses then…"

Their eyes still locked, the softest of nods from her, a swallow, the anticipation of his deeper touch building so that her insides clenched excruciatingly, desperate, desperate with desire for him, tremoring her into an abrupt, undeniable, arch reaching for him.

 _His eyes, my God the man's eyes…_

"And fast," he reminded, _remaining so annoyingly in control._

Her voice came, barely audible, "Yes, William, yes."

Brown eyes, blue eyes – magnetized, forged, fused, the perilous intensity of it something they each remembered from their earliest days together, now realizing how much they had missed it.

Julia's brain warned her, her heart beating so fast, " _He would see it_ …" He would see the pleasure he brought her, such fire it would melt her into a puddily goop. And then, then she remembered as she saw his face change, as she felt the pressure of him, the breaching touch demolishing her… _William felt it too. William felt it too._

William stormed with a fury making love to her, thrusting, pounding, strained and rugged his grunting with each thunderous pump.

 _Wham – the sound whipped through the air. The doorbell! It was the doorbell… downstairs!_

Julia's breathless voice in his ear, "They must have sent a carriage for you…"

He replied, his lovemaking never stopping, "Must be some important toff got robbed…"

 _She would have told him who the Banner's were if she could have, but right now she needed to make sure he didn't stop, for if he did when she was this close, most surely she would die._

She begged, squeezed him closer, increased the power, the cadenced swing, of her hips harmoniously in time with his, "Oh, hurry William. Eloise will get the door. Hurry."

The front door opened… there were muffled voices… footsteps up the stairs.

Desperate, so desperate, furious with passion and rush, life and death fallen to the wayside in the wake of it all.

 _ **He would not wait... not wait for her…**_

The urgency burst her, forced her to implosion.

And his teeth, his seizing so rough on her shoulder, pinning her down, holding her firmly in place.

The ravenous hunger of him erupting a roaring, rupturous flood of heat, wave after wave of melty, sultry, heat, rolling through her every cell.

William driving forward, closer, _right there_ , mightily barreling for the lifting crest of it, soaring from such heights…

And then, finally, the gushing, the steamy plume of him geysering, so far, so deep, that she was certain he touched her soul. _No man, no man but this one, could love her so deeply_ , the molten, fusing caress of which would last her beyond a lifetime. _My God she loved this man so much_ , so much it would surely destroy her, destroy her atom by atom, with the tumultuous force of its warm ripples.

Their synchronous moans fierce, sounding with such melodious volume that William had to take the forbidden kiss to muffle them, pure euphoria poured out and poured in, boundaries gone, there was no in, no out, no up, no down…

 _ **Knock, knock**_ , at the bedroom door…

Just barely done, barely. William swallowing to moisten his throat, strained from such robust effort, hearts pounding so that the thumps of them could undoubtedly be heard out in the hall, so breathless, dizzy with the heaven of it…

Eloise's voice, cautious…

 _And they were both certain of the meaning behind her cautiousness, back somewhere inside their brains, but for now they were still so absorbed by the slowing of their scrumptious waves of pleasure…_

Eloise's voice through the door said, "Detective Murdoch, sir, Inspector Brackenreid is here for you."

"The Inspector!?" Julia whispered.

He pressed up off of the mattress to see her face, lifted his big brown eyes wide, impressed, then fell back down heavy, exhausted, thoroughly spent, to huddle his face in her neck. It would need to be her, her that spoke.

Julia answered Eloise from underneath him, "He will need ten minutes… we were, um, we were sound asleep when the phone call came in."

There was a moment, a pause. "Yes, doctor. I'll tell him," came Eloise's knowing reply.

"She knows," Julia whispered to William, "I'm sure she knows." And with that she felt William's smile in her neck, his nod, and she hugged him tighter, wrapping her legs higher up around him and she rocked them both, such heat of love in her chest for him. _She loved him so._

Julia hugged him there, held him there in her arms, in her deep embrace, held him tighter, sensing he would feel the pressure to hurry to leave, to go. "Just one minute more, William," her lips, a nip, at his ear, her fingers in his hair, the dampness a testament to the effort he had expended. "Love me one minute more."

"Perhaps," mischief in his tone, "If I don't have to kiss you." But then he did kiss her, so lovely, so very, very lovely.

When she gave him the signal she was ready to give him up, a soft push at his chest, he rolled bringing her up on top of him, and then she lifted away, and she got out of the bed and offered him her hand. "Come," she said, "I will help… I'll pick out your suit."

William went into the bathroom, his mind racing ahead to the new case, Julia moved to his side of the closet. She heard the toilet flush, imagined William, _beautiful, beautiful William_ , naked, looking himself in the eye in the mirror, encouraging himself for the day ahead.

His complaint came, "Not the blue one…"

Oh, her smile was wicked. "Yes, the blue one," her voice playful and cocky.

She imagined she heard a huff, "Julia, it's too tight… And I get… hot…"

Bringing the blue suit out to lay it on the bed, she straightened out its wrinkles admiringly and teased him, "And that, detective, is exactly why I like it… both tight and hot." She shook her head and giggled to herself as she pictured his scowl from under the fluffy white shaving cream.

He heard her voice at the door, a quick, _so gorgeous she noted_ , glance with his eyes. Quieter now, closer, she said, "I'm having trouble finding blue socks though. But you'll be wearing black shoes anyway."

 _Oh, how he loved when she did this_ , out right stared at him, soaked him in with every molecule of her body. He feigned ignoring her, continued his shaving.

Julia Ogden was thoroughly, whole-heartedly, caught. Teasing herself, admitting to her state, she said, voice deliciously misty, "This is a view I quite like..." hot, hot breath exhaled, "Not usually this exquisite… as you are usually in your pajama bottoms. It is quite the treat." Revealing where her eyes were most drawn, she asked him, "Do you work on those lovely hunky haunches of yours too, um," he felt her eyes leave his body, meet his in the mirror, loving that her voice had suddenly become dry, watching her swallow before she continued, "when you use your weights?"

 _Oh, his smile was so delightfully cocky_ , before he replied, pretending to be very interested, again, in shaving, forcing his tone to be nonchalant, "No. No, I believe it is the bicycle."

"Well husband, however it is that you obtain it, you do have a magnificent physique," she said, her eyes lowering, ravishing his flesh once more.

"Well, Mrs. Murdoch," he answered her, "It is necessary… If I am to be able to stand next to a woman who is so beautiful." His smile was sincere as she returned to gaze into his reflected face. Soft, a giggle from her, but warm, very, very warm, her smile, before she bowed slightly to him in the mirror.

Then she noticed her husband's eyes stray downward, and she remembered that she was naked too. A rush hit, first embarrassed, but then immediately overwrought with an odd pride, almost joy, that he responded to her body _that way_. "I, um… I…"

Julia's mind ran wildly, so many times she had seen that expression, been thrilled to the bone by that expression. It floored her, weakened her knees, swirled her brain. Then, all of a sudden, she was there again, the first time, the first time William had seen her naked body… George, the shovel, her heart pounding so. Absolute, blackeningly dizzy terror, as George's eyes had drifted to a spot behind her, and she knew, just knew, William Murdoch was there. _**He looked! She saw him look!**_ And he forced his eyes up, and he pulled off his jacket to offer her cover, but she had seen it… _William Murdoch liked what he had seen_. Ah, but then the Inspector, he could not control his desires as well as that adorable buttoned-down detective she so loved. No, the Inspector was outright gawking, the Inspector of all people… WHAM, a panic hit…

Julia's eyes bolted to William's in the mirror, alerting, "William! The Inspector!"

And he remembered that the Inspector was waiting for him downstairs, and the wild rush to hurry his shaving and dressing began anew.

)

The Inspector looked on as Julia gave William a sweet peck of a kiss good-bye, and she told him she would bring him some lunch in his office later.

Brackenreid popped his hat back on his head and twirled his cane suavely as he stepped out ahead of Murdoch, and then turned back to say, "The reporters are back, I see."

A frown from William as he complained, "Our respite from Madge Merton's story in the Daily Star is over, I suppose." Unsure why, he stepped back to his wife, and kissed her once more. "Later," he said.

She bowed to him, flirting a little, giving him a twinkle and subtle wiggle, "Later detective," she promised.

) (

After the Inspector and Murdoch had called all the constables together in the bullpen to inform them about the new robbery case, the men dispersed to begin their various assignments, and the Inspector and the detective headed back into their offices. William's first step would be setting-up his famous blackboard to help him visualize and track the clues in the case.

William suspected there had actually been at least TWO robberies thus far, the one from last night after the same Ball he and Julia had attended, William writing "Banner" on the board for this victim. And the other was from over a month ago… _if he was right, anyway_. With a frown, he followed this victim's name with a question mark – "Hubbard?" James Hubbard, a man of color, had died after he and his wife had been attacked at knifepoint upon arriving home after a Ball, caught just inside their front door by the robber. This scenario was similar to what had happened to the Banner's last night. In both of these cases, the robber had gotten away with much of the wife's jewels, those that were on her person as well as those in the house safes. The thief was never caught in the Hubbard case, though the detective from Stationhouse 1, Detective Watts, had intended on charging the culprit, not only with the robbery, but also with murder, but to a lesser degree, Mr. Hubbard dying from a heart attack that the coroner argued had been a direct result of the attack. The Hubbard's were also quite wealthy and powerful toffs in Toronto, much the same as the Banner's in this regard, despite Hubbard's being a colored man. The dead man's brother, William Hubbard, was a prominent politician. In the Hubbard case, the jewels were never recovered. Needless to say, William intended to do better with his case than Watts had done. The similarities between the two cases intrigued William. It would be the first thing he looked into.

Stepping back from the board, William sighed. There was something about the robber's timing in both cases, somehow the perpetrator knowing _**exactly**_ when the victims would be walking into their homes, late, staff asleep, in both cases. _Perhaps_ , his mind tossed up the image _, the jobs required two men – one at the Ball observing the victims, somehow notifying his partner when the intended targets were leaving the affair – perhaps with a phone call, thus, the partner who would have been watching the victim's home, and therefore able to ascertain if the home was void of any servants that could disrupt the robbery, then this partner, somehow getting inside to be ready right inside the door for the attack?_ In neither the Hubbard case nor the Banner case was there any evidence of the robber breaking into the home. _Done this way, the robbers could be sure that their attack would be uninterrupted by a housekeeper, or a butler, or whatever…_

)

Julia was in good spirits, greeting and chatting with the constables on her way through Stationhouse #4 as she headed for her husband's office. Much of the talk was about the delicious smells coming from her picnic basket, Julia explaining that she had stopped by the Windsor House Hotel to get William his favorite meal for their lunch. She knocked on William's office door, catching his eye through the glass before she let herself in. Her husband was talking on the phone. After placing the basket down on his worktable, she headed over to his desk and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek. She pulled off her gloves, hung her coat on the rack with his, reaching out to touch, to fondle, his maroon-colored scarf, her eyes stalling on William's homburg hanging from one of the hooks on the coat stand. His conversation seemed to be about an older case… one that had not been solved. Eavesdropping further, Julia figured out much. She remembered the Hubbard case. Sad, to lose such an important man. _Heart attack_ she remembered. And then it hit her – the connection. The Hubbard's had come home after a big dance too, to be robbed… the robber was waiting for them in their house, she remembered. He took jewels. Of course! William was truly brilliant! Of course! It was very likely the same perpetrator!

The lunch already spread out, waiting, Julia sat and entertained herself by examining his blackboard. " _Mm_ ," memory after memory rolled by in her mind's eye, of so many times when she had secretly watched her gorgeous husband over the years working at his drawing board… such wonderful memories…

Her eye caught Neil Catfrey's name… the words, "accomplice?" and "possible alias?" written next to it.

" _Catfrey! William suspects Catfrey!"_ her brain screamed.

" _Unbelievable! Men! Really, the man takes an interest in me, and so, of course, he must be some sort of low-life criminal. Really! I've half a mind to march out of here right now!"_ she sat there steaming. Attempting to glare at William, her anger seeming to go unnoticed, thus flaring it even more, she ascertained that William was about to hang up the phone and forced herself to wait.

Reaching the point of the pleasantries of good-byes with the Stationhouse 1 detective, William said into the receiver, "Thanks for getting back to me Detective Watts… Yes. Yes, you too, detective… Good day," then hanging up the phone. So quickly he caught wind of Julia's fury, his face changing before her very eyes to one of worry.

"What is it?" he asked, approaching.

 _It was happening again, a part of William splitting off and becoming enthralled by the beauty of Julia when she was angry. His focus became a dazed stare, half of him suffering from ardor, the other half from panic._

Julia huffed, and shoved her chin high. "So, you suspect Neil Catfrey. You think Catfrey committed this robbery –and the Hubbard robbery too, I see… That he just used me… to what? What, William? To get closer to you?"

"Julia," _William's tone one that surged her rage, infuriatingly trying, so hard, to be the calm one, the reasonable one,_ "I'm sure Mr. Catfrey did not have to feign his… his romantic interests in you, Julia… The fact that you look as you do, that you are as attractive as you are, as intriguing as you are… was… um, well was…" _William suddenly worried that he was digging himself further into a deep, deep hole. If only he could back pedal… somehow turn this around, but the words, the words, they were right there, and before he could stop them, they came out._ "It was fortunate for him, I suspect, that you are as beautiful as you are. I'm merely suggesting that perhaps you were not his intended target…"

 _Flames, terrifying daggers of flames, flew across the room…_

"Because YOU were! Because you think Neil Catfrey wasn't interested in me at all – simply using me to get closer to YOU!"

William wrinkled the corner of his mouth.

 _Oh my God, she was so mad!_ "Everything isn't always about you, William!" she yelled it loud, slammed his helping, her helping, of the delicious warm lunch, and the scrumptious pieces of warm bread, into the picnic basket, all the while huffing and puffing. She grabbed her purse and her hat and her coat, and marched to the door. It took everything she had not to slam it.

 _Her head screamed at her to tell the little weasel constables off too, as they all scurried about trying to appear to have not noticed that she and William had been fighting._ A deep breath first, "Constables," she greeted, her lips tightly forced into a pinched smile, before she made herself walk slower than felt comfortable across the bullpen to take her exit.

From the other side of their face-to-face desks, George and Henry shared a wide-eyed glance. Henry warned, "He'll be in a foul mood now," right before…

"George!" the bellow came from Detective Murdoch's office.

Another shared look between the constables, George stood to go face the barrage. However, the detective already had advanced, his office door swinging opened with a rush, banging into the door stop with a thud.

George cringed slightly, half expecting the glass with Detective Murdoch's name painted on it to shatter with the force.

Henry ducked his head, not to avoid or cower, but to hide his laughing.

The detective's tone was stern, "Constable Crabtree, I have been waiting for your report on the public responses to our call for items matching our Body-Dumper victim's bruise. I hope you are not thinking that just because the press has let up on the story, that that's grounds to…."

"No sir," George began to search through a pile of files on his desk. Finding the one he wanted, an immensely thick file at that, he handed the file to the detective and said, hurrying, worried, "I… er, I was remiss in getting it to you, sir… But only because it ended up yielding nothing pertinent to the case… er, I believe, sir."

"Not one of these citizens came up with an object that had the right size and shape?" Murdoch challenged, his voice between a rebuke and disbelief and pain.

George shook his head, spreading his arms out, pleading for patience, "Not a…"

A snicker from Henry drew their eyes, and William's blood boiled in his veins, steamed up into his head, which suddenly hurt with a vehemence that made him reach for his brow before he barked, "Constable Higgins! It's been an entire morning and you have nothing to report on Mr. Catfrey!" Murdoch's eyes found the suspect's sketch – made by the artist from a description William had given him, himself, under a pile of random papers on Higgins' desk. It was a sketch of Neil Catfrey. He reached over and fished up the sketch. "Nothing as to his whereabouts, as to who he is, what it is this man does to make a living!?" The detective's big dark eyes honed and narrowed and scolded into the wide blue realm of Henry Higgins' eyes.

"Only, as you suspected," Henry suddenly needed to clear his throat, _the pressure getting to him_ , "Nearly everyone from the Ball last night remembered Mr. Catfrey, sir, but no one seems to know much more about him than that his name is Neil Catfrey, and that he claimed to be involved in some sort of technology manufacturing… um, thing, sir."

"I want his picture shown all around Toronto – not just to people who were at the Ball," he corrected, ordering, hoping that this time his instructions were clear. Dissatisfied with the constable's speed in taking up the charge, he added with a deep yell, "Now!"

"Yes sir," Henry jumped up, tentatively taking the sketch from Murdoch's hand. "I'll get the lads right on it, sir," he said, taking his leave.

"Oh," the detective called him back, sounding much more in control, "Constable Higgins…" he paused, leaned closer, "make sure to tell the lads to show Mr. Catfrey's picture to women… wives, maids, etc.," there was a pained scowl on Detective Murdoch's face as he added, "Women tend to notice the man much more so than do men."

"Yes sir," Henry replied, then paused awkwardly…

 _It seemed the young constable was considering commenting…_

The wheels in Henry's brain were turning, " _Of course! That's what they fought about. Catfrey was at the same soiree as the detective and the doctor… Dr. Ogden must have '_ _ **noticed**_ _' Catfrey. That's why the detective's so upset…"_

George jumped in to avert the impending disaster. "You heard Detective Murdoch, Higgins. There's much to do, no?"

With that, Higgins nodded to the detective and turned to go spread the word, to make sure all the men knew to be sure to ask _**women**_ about Catfrey, and that they'd best be quick about it.

Ironically, William and George stood together, collectively sighing, before they each went about their separate ways.

William closed his office door and reached up to rub his forehead. _He would need to buy Julia flowers._ He felt the wrinkles in his brow crease tight as he thought, as he remembered, " _She was so upset… so astoundingly upset._ " He really had not expected it. A frown took his face, his brain adding, " _and now no lunch either_." He was coming to realize that he really disliked this Neil Catfrey character, disliked him quite a lot.

) (

Seeing images of Julia's fiery explosion re-playing in his mind, interrupting his thoughts for the umpteenth time, William coped by reminding himself that he would need to buy flowers, the mental reminder prompting a huge sigh to escape his chest. " _My God, she was angry_ ," he retold himself once more. " _Yellow ones_ ," he changed the subject in his head, " _like at our wedding, and then some orange and red, maybe a pink one… for the fireworks, I guess,_ " he planned. _He would pick up the roses on his way back to the stationhouse…_ the thought shoving him back on track, back onto working the robbery case. _He would take George, question some of the toffs, find out if Catfrey had been at the same Ball the Hubbard's had attended the night they were robbed and that poor Mr. Hubbard was terrified to death, the knife, the violence, more than his weak heart could take._

) (

" _Quiet as a mouse_ ," her inner-voice coached her, Julia having had turned the key and stepped in through the front door in near silence. _There were still lights on… William had not yet closed-up the house and gone to sleep…_ She made herself take a deep breath. It was after midnight, and they both had work tomorrow. Fortunately, Isaac had stayed with her, after she had waited for him to finish with his last patient, and he had then offered her some of his fine whiskey, and they had both drank too much, and she had bellowed away her anger and then cried on his shoulder with her regret, _and such a good friend_ , Isaac made them both some coffee, and then made sure she did not head home to William until she had sobered up.

She placed her purse down on the table in foyer, and a flash flickered quickly through her brain, of her resting down her fancier purse, the one she had used for the Ball, putting it down in exactly the same spot just the night before. _Amazing, it seemed like a decade ago_ , she sighed. Next, she tended to her hatpins, then her coat. Still all the while, the house made not a sound. Conflicted, a part of her wished that he would be asleep – _envisioned sliding into bed next to him, maybe they'd make love in the night, everything would be fine…_ But, another part of her, the wiser, more sagely part of herself _, it foresaw dealing with the problem, picturing herself and William sitting together and talking it through, no matter how late in the night it became, no matter the pain they encountered…_

 _ **She spotted him**_ … spotted him there, lying down on the couch, the sight sending a thunderclap to her heart…

 _Asleep?_ Julia wondered, _truth be told, she was hoping so_. Unaware of it, she was holding her breath, and yet her heartbeats thumped with enough force inside her chest that she feared they might wake him. She approached, rounding the corner of the couch to capture the full picture. _My God, how the sight stole her heart, her breath, seemed to suck at her very soul…._ There, right there before her very eyes, William lay asleep, obviously waiting up for her before he had drifted off, and huddled in his arms, hugged to his chest, there was his offering, both thorny and astoundingly beautiful, a magnificent bouquet of roses, yellow, and orange, and splashes of white, and pink, and red. And she knew that he had waited up for her… waited so long _, so very, very, long_ , with his flowers, to tell her that he was sorry, to tell that her he loved her, and Julia's heart seemed to rupture, imploding with the force of his love for her, erupting, spilling over, with the force of her love for him… but there too, smoking and twisting around and through the immensely powerful feelings of their shared love and devotion, lingering in the background, was the barbed agony of her regret. _There was no doubt about it now, she would have to wake him. She would have to make it right._

Julia sighed, looked around the room. It must have been a long enough time that even the somewhat stuffy William Murdoch had given up on staying dressed properly in his suit, the various pieces of it folded and hung neatly over the back of the other couch. He had fallen asleep in his trousers and his undershirt, and his socks too, she noticed. An instinct to cover him up, worrying that he would be too cold, caused a subtle twitch in her. She wanted to be tender with him, she felt the little nudge behind her eyes, the threat of tears. It happened without her planning it, or thinking about it… she just began, began to take off her clothes, buttons, grommets on her corset, and she draped her clothes next to his, stripping down to only her bloomers and her chemise. The warmth, the softness… the intimacy she felt, she hoped with all her heart that he would feel it too, that he would no longer fret…

"William…"

He heard her voice far-off and close, and the bed… _no, no it was the couch_ , buckled and sunk and tilted, rolling him closer to her. There was her touch, her hand, warm, to his shoulder, and William woke, sat up to face her sitting on the couch in front of him, his legs still extended out straight on the couch behind her seated body. "Julia," his tone more a statement of fact than a question.

She sensed that he had not yet remembered the details… _not yet, but he would soon enough._

"You are so sweet, waiting here for me, with these pretty flowers, so late, you waited so long you fell asleep waiting…"

William's eyes…

Julia's eyes…

Dropped down to his somewhat squashed bouquet, to see that one of the rose's thorns had pierced into the fabric of his white, cotton undershirt, and then he remembered, and then he asked her, his eyes just catching hers at the end of his question, his voice scratchy from sleep, "Are you still mad at me?" And then a puzzled look spread over his face as he took in the sight of her, looked down to her breasts, saw what she had on, or rather what she did not.

Julia reached over and lifted his chin, bringing his big, brown eyes up to meet hers again. "No William, no, I'm not mad at you… And I must say, if anybody should be giving flowers to one of us, it should be me giving them to you," she told, then turned her attention to his bouquet, her surgeon-trained hands gently, knowingly, separating the small white fibers of his shirt from the rose thorn. She glanced at him while working on the task, _gorgeous, the noticing thrilling her to the core, he was watching her, that sweet sideways dart of his eyes gorgeous big eyes, catching hers, then rushing away._ Shirt feed, she took his flowers from him. "They are truly lovely, William," she whispered, placing them down on the coffee table in front of them.

"So, you're not still angry with me then?" he asked again, finding it hard to believe.

She wrinkled a corner of her mouth, _his gesture… now also hers through familiarity_ , "I never was…"

"You could have fooled me," he interjected, his heart on his sleeve, suggesting a sense of comedy that struck home because it rang true.

Julia giggled, _nervous,_ and yet it lightened their mood. "Yes, I suppose with the way I acted it would have, but it was much more anger at myself, really…" such a sadness took her face, and then she dropped her magnetic blue eyes away, and mumbled, "so embarrassed that I couldn't yet accept…"

Then, the calm seemed to leave her voice as her mind rushed ahead to what she still had yet to do, to what she would say to him next, William watching as her face reddened and wrinkled and her voice rose into the customary high, breathless pitch it would take on whenever she became upset, "I'm so sorry William," her eyes pink and pooled with shimmering tears. She swallowed back the saltiness, her voice down to a whisper, "I'm sorry for blowing up at you in your office, and storming out…" Julia held his gaze, tight, pleading with her eyes. She repeated, cupping his cheek, whispering her promise, "I'm sorry."

He placed his hand over hers, pulled it down to his lips, placed a soft kiss to the delicate, petal-soft flesh at the inside of her wrist. And then her fingers traced along his face, slid up his jawline, the stubbly little pricks of his unshaven face reminding, ever so slightly, of the thorns of the roses, and she slipped her fingers into his hair. A sniffle, she pushed the tears away, toughened herself. "You were right, William. You were right. Neil Catfrey should be at the top of your suspect list," she nodded, agreeing with herself.

 _He heard it, and she did too, there was a hint of anger in her tenor… and this time Julia's anger was aimed at the deserving target instead of at William, or at herself, this time her anger was aimed at the man who had tricked her, who had used her, aimed directly at Neil Catfrey. And that anger, it made her stronger._

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, and it made her smile, and finally, finally… she truly breathed. _They were alright._ She folded forward into his arms and he laid them down together there on the couch. Julia rested her head on his chest, and snuggled in deeper, and began to travel his muscles with her fingers, with her supple, opened palm, soaking in the feel of him through his cottony shirt. The hardness of his flesh under her hand reminded her that he was likely terribly sore from lifting the weights as he had last night. She would care for him, lifting herself to lay a delicate trail of kisses across his chest, the weightlessness of the tender kisses juxtaposed against the heavier massage, and then she nestled back into her spot. His heart beating… steady, strong, slow, and she knew that she was safe, the relief of it allowing her to look inward, allowing her to tell him, allowing her to let him see, for it was William, and she trusted him more than any words could ever say.

She felt his head tuck down as she inhaled beginning to speak, and she knew he was wholly with her, listening. "I'm so ashamed of how I behaved… at the Ball. So, so ashamed. I was… duped, William. I was so completely stupid, believing the man was interested in me…"

 _He had heard it change as she spoke…_

 _She had felt it changing too_ …

 _The tears forming in her eyes again, the heat and the swelling, had robbed her of the ability to breathe correctly, and had rendered her victim to the betraying squeakiness._

His warm exhale flowed over her head, fluttering her curls, before he soothed, interrupting her downward spiral, "Catfrey wasn't faking his interest, Julia. Chemistry like that can't be faked – that's the reason it upset me so much, because it was so real. No one but Catfrey himself would know, would have been able to tell that he was being deceitful, no one else would have known what his true intentions had been…"

Julia popped up abruptly, and after a rushed swallow amended, "No one but Catfrey and _**you**_ – _**you**_ know what a fool I was, William."

He hugged her closer, leaned down to kiss her hair and encouraged her to lay her head back down on his chest, wished that she would let it go. "Don't forget, Catfrey fooled me too, hmm?" he asked her, giving her a loving squeeze, relieved as her nod came. He waited, waited to hear her breathe, momentarily concerned she might yield to the shame and begin to wholeheartedly cry. He took a deep breath himself and added, hoping it would help, "I was decimated Julia, thoroughly decimated that you might choose him… anyone, over me. Neil Catfrey is a slick character, there's no doubt about that. I'm sure he's tricked many people before us with his cons, and if we can't stop him, I suspect he'll trick many more to come."

She nodded again, resumed her attentive rubbing of his body.

William comforted further, "Besides, it's all just speculation at this point, it's just an idea that Neil Catfrey's could be involved in these robberies. Although…" _Unable to see his expression, still Julia knew, he was wrinkling his face with doubt. William went on,_ "Patrons, and also some of the wait staff, who were at both affairs claim to have seen Catfrey at the same Ball the Hubbard's were robbed after, as well as the one last night. I suppose it could just be coincidence… any of these same witnesses were also at both dances… any one of them could be the culprit too…"

 _She smiled, knowing his unsure look had only deepened._

"No. No, William. I think you're right. Catfrey is most likely your robber," she concluded, sounding stronger, then adding, admitting, "It's true that everything isn't always about you… but, I think, I think that this time it was."

She cuddled into his squeeze as he acknowledged her agreement with his deductions, "Mm," he gave, then pinched his lips together, gave her a winsome bow.

A moment later, after a sigh, William reached up and rubbed his brow, his unknown tell that he was feeling stressed…

"What is it William?" she asked.

He released another sigh before he explained, "There's no telling if this is related to the Hubbard's being robbed, but since back when Detective Watts was working the Hubbard case over a month ago, we've come to know that a priceless, ancient Egyptian tiger eye necklace was also stolen from the museum where they held that event, possibly that same night. It had been replaced with an incredibly good forgery…"

She propped up to see his face. "If you're right about the connection, then these thefts could be really quite big, hmm?" she asked.

"Mm," his only answer, thoughtful. _William's instincts told him he was right._

)

Much as they had done the night before, the couple walked the house together, checking for closed windows, locked doors, properly set scrutiny cameras. And, much like the night before, they were weary, for it was quite late, but they were healed, they were fused, bonded – _**whole.**_ Too tired to make love tonight, the Murdoch's were still contented, for love had filled them, filled them completely and thoroughly, cell to every last cell. William fell off to sleep the moment his head hit the pillow, his breathing reminding Julia of the beautiful sounds the ocean makes, the slow, regular, rhythm, _almost hypnotic_ , waves lapping the shore in the peaceful darkness.

She remembered sneaking in the front door earlier, how apprehensive she had felt, even remembered thinking to herself to be " _quiet as a mouse_." So grateful to her wiser self for advising her to overcome her fear, to wake him, to talk with him _. Her mind showed her again the lovely sight of William lying there on the couch, having had fallen asleep waiting for her, hugging his golden, thorny, sweet, sweet bouquet of roses… My God, she loved William Henry Murdoch so much it hurt sometimes._ Her own breath, a heavy sigh, nearly a swoon, then his, his breath even deeper in tone now, their breaths the only sounds, it seemed, for miles around… _the house once again, not making a sound_ … and then, Julia too, was gone, gone rocking away in the delicious ripples of drifting off to sleep…

 **So odd though, that now,** _ **well**_ _ **actually ever since they had gotten home from the Ball the night before**_ **, their house could be so quiet… and yet… yet…** _ **it listened**_ **. Such is the consequence if you have been thoroughly CAT-burgled, by an artist, by an expert, so much so that you do not even know that there is something precious, something highly, highly precious, that you have lost, something that has been stolen away from you in the dark of the night, much like the tiger's eye stone within the stolen necklace, the gem a most ancient talisman, mysterious and powerful, revered and feared - an "all- seeing, all-knowing, eye," believed to grant the wearer the ability to observe everything, even through closed doors.**


	10. 10 The Panther, Sub Rosa T

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 10: The Panther, Sub-Rosa?

"Daddy! Daddy!" little William Jr. hollered out with excitement, hearing the front door and taking off like a shot. Surprising herself with her own quick pace, Julia smiled at her childlike delight, even shook her head with the noticing, as she fought the urge to run to him as well.

"Hello, Little Man," she heard William respond with the sound of his big smile squeezing his words, just before she turned the corner and entered the foyer, catching sight of their little toddler diving to hug William's legs as he placed a bouquet of roses down on the table.

"You're so late detective?" she asked, then added, "He was worried he'd miss you." She knew her husband, he would have been home even later than this if not for the chance to make it home before his son's bedtime.

"Mommy… fowers! Me see…" the young one asked, jumping up with little hops towards the rosy target, parental legs and bodies blocking his way. The answer from them was slow, for his parents were in an embrace. His big, brown, bright eyes gazed up at them as they kissed. Typical, _secretly Julia loving it_ , the little one tugged at her skirts, "Fowers. Fowers."

William felt Julia's smile grow under his lips and he released their kiss.

His fingers were icy cold from the chill outside as he reached up and fiddled with one of her curls, and she remembered he had ridden his bicycle home.

"I did promise to never stop courting you," he said, then wrinkling a corner of his mouth. Her attention turned to the bouquet and William squatted down to more thoroughly greet his son, who dove into his arms. There was the softest of _puff_ sounds as the little boy's tiny body landed against his father's densely-coated chest.

"Pink?" Julia observed, _not a usual color from him_. "They're lovely William," she decided, thinking the cheery change was a nice one. The gusty, unseasonably cold, late October day had caused a frigid chill to emanate off of William's coat, the bite of it arriving through her dress to register on her skin underneath it. She reached down to William as he hugged and kissed William Jr., taking his homburg from his head.

"Co-o-o-old!" William Jr. exaggerated his shivering for emphasis in his father's arms.

"Indeed…" his father replied.

Julia fretted for a moment, "I hope it warms up before our Halloween party… Our costumes are…" she almost said, " _skimpy, to say the least_ ," but decided against it, not wanting to alert William to what was to come, as her mind pictured what she had planned with James Pendrick, grateful for James' generosity in using his contacts in the film-making industry to help procure their costumes. She saw the three of them inside her head, _her standing next to William, their little son in William's arms, the small family dressed as King Neptune and his wife Salacia with their son Triton, all of them wearing little more than tightly-fitting "fishtail" pants for legs with fin-like extensions curling out and upwards from below their knees. William, above the seafaring appendage, wearing nothing more than his crown and his fake goatie beard, looking gorgeous and exposed and muscular, her with merely two clamshells…_

Pulling Julia out of her head, William stood and began his more traditionally rambunctious play with the toddler, tossing and flying him about, the child's giggles and squeals escalating in both glee and amplitude. There was a joyfulness to William's tone that warmed her heart when he dragged her back into the here and now, encouraging, "It will…" with a reply to her worries, _magnanimously detecting she had lost the thought with her pause_ , and then helping, "get warmer."

Nonchalantly stopping their roughhousing, Julia took William Jr. from her husband, plopped the boy on her hip, and then lifted her bouquet of pink roses and placed them in the same handing holding the child in order to begin helping William remove his scarf.

"Pretty," William Jr. declared, leaning over to stick his nose into the plush, perfumy flowers, his senses becoming overwhelmed by the sweet, potent scent and the wonderfully supple caress of the petals on his cheeks.

Julia continued on, briefly leaning down to kiss her son's abundant black curls, "Eloise made beef stroganoff. I'll warm some up for you, hmm?" she suggested. Their eyes met and held for the first time since he had come through the door, with that intensity they were both familiar with, that they both had grown addicted to, and the magnetism of it captured them there momentarily. So much exchanged with the intimate and strong bonding, she could tell he was worried – probably about the case, _cases now,_ she corrected herself in her mind, _with the robberies adding to the whole Body-Dumper ordeal_ , and she also knew he was grateful… for them, for this house, for their magnificent life, and she knew he felt her love, that William knew she loved him more than she would ever be able to tell him in words, and then he wrinkled a corner of his mouth admitting to the power of the connection, the charming gesture telling her that everything she had been thinking was true, and she smiled, and cupped his cheek, and tilted in and gave him a softer, more meaningful kiss, and then she left him in the foyer, still decloaking, and went to the kitchen with the baby and the flowers.

After hanging his suit jacket temporarily on the peg over his coat, William considered loosening his tie, deciding against it, his brain sending up delightful thoughts of Julia doing it instead. He turned to the table opposite and spotted the mail. Julia had already sorted it and left his – two envelopes, in a pile for him. He lifted the two letters, checking the senders… Out of the corner of his eye, he spied it, _William noting for the umpteenth time the extraordinary way one's peripheral vision can pick up, with such sensitivity, something that has been there all along but has gone unnoticed._ Julia had propped the special letter up against the back wall, giving it an air of importance. It was addressed to her… and she had opened it, the jagged edges of the torn paper lining the broken seal. She had placed the letter back inside the envelope. _Surely, she intended to share it with him, why else would she leave it like that?_ William ducked down, leaning in closer to read who it was from. " _The Canadian Association of Pathologists_ ," he read it aloud in his head to himself. " _Huh_ ," he thought, intrigued. The delicious smell of Eloise's beef stroganoff hit his nostrils, and humming as he went, his stomach urged him to the kitchen.

Once in the kitchen, William soaked in the sight of Julia's backside at the stove. _Mm… a view he always enjoyed_.

Pulled to turn to look at William Jr. in his highchair by a few hearty toddler slaps down onto the highchair tray, the boy was enjoying some pieces of cookie – his little legs bouncing and kicking about as he watched them.

Mischievously, William put a finger up to his lips and secretly shushed the child. _Such fun_ , the game earned him a big squeal and an even heartier series of slaps.

William walked stealthily up behind Julia, paused so very close to her, he wondered if she would feel him there, like an aura connecting between them.

She did sense him there, but it was his breath more than his aura, for William was unable to help himself, his breathing had become deeper, more hurried, for his mind had considered what he would like to do to her… if their little son were not right there, eyes alert and focused intently on them.

 _Delicious_ , Julia leaned backwards into him, tilting her head, inviting him to her most vulnerable aspect, which he took, vigorously, his mouth, his teeth, his husky breath on her neck. His hands moved in, first holding her firmly by the hips, then stepping in closer, tighter, pressing in, from behind her… and his hands… his hands, hungry and firm, riding up her curves, and ever so slightly, just the hint of a touch, his thumbs breached upwards to purloin the rounded swellings of her bosoms, moving lusciously, intentionally, across her most tender raised spots through the fabric of her blouse, and her breath caught, and – _MY GOD_ – it thrilled him.

"You'll make me burn it," she complained, now his breath rumbling her ear, just before his evil chuckle.

She yielded, turned to kiss him, but broke the kiss off before it had barely begun, to ask him, "Should I turn off the flame?"

His mouth, _so smooth and… succulent_ , over hers, _his kiss_ _spun her brain so…_

William let her lips go, and floated his rough, unshaven face along hers to whisper in her ear, "I quite like the flame," melting her, _her knees sure to buckle_ , she felt the tilt, resisted it with all her might, leaning back against the sheer force of the vortexing of wanting him.

"Like a moth, detective," she teased him. And her mind imagined a wick inside a candle, carrying the heat down deeper and deeper down into him, and then she imagined him growing in response, readying… and it nearly demolished her. _Somehow, somehow_ , she made herself swallow, the action, dropping her center of gravity enough that she felt herself grounding… enough… to pull back… to regain…

Julia stepped out of his arms. "I'll not be burning your supper, detective," she insisted… " _Not this time anyway,_ " she added sarcastically in her head, turning her back to him, focusing on the noodles and chunks of beef, " _now a bit too browned_ ," she noticed as she scraped at the food that had stuck with the heat to the bottom of the pan. "Go sit at the table with your son," she instructed.

While William ate, the conversation came around to the letter she had set aside on the foyer table, then growing lively with the good news. Julia told him that the Canadian Association of Pathologists had notified her that they were awarding her with their annual prize for excellence and innovation. They had cited a few of her published papers as exemplary, particularly the one she had written with two of her students about their, "groundbreaking work…" (O _f course, Julia had found her own pun to be absolutely hilarious, and decided there and then that she would use it her acceptance speech)_. Featuring the use of their unique Body Farm, this scientific paper was able to provide scientists in the field of pathology with cutting-edge data and techniques to apply when considering multiple factors that affect decomposition, ultimately improving the ability to accurately determine time of death.

The couple was highly excited by the idea of their Body Farm receiving such professional accolades, and there was some hope that it might serve to secure the image of the Body Farm with the public, the prestigious national group of pathologists toting the idea of creating such a research facility as theirs as "revolutionary." They considered notifying the papers of the news, but chose instead to take the more modest approach of letting the news arrive on its own… if it would.

Having finished his meal, William walked over to his son and lifted him out of his highchair to bring him back over to his chair to his lap. He sat with the boy while Julia began to clean up. Predictably, their play became spirited once again.

Julia warned, not seeming to really pay them much mind, "Oh William, don't go getting him all wound up before he has to go to bed."

But her warnings went unheeded as the mood changed, and currents of frisky electricity swelled in the air, and even Julia was soon enough swept up into the fun of it, joining in, the tiny boy flipped upside-down and tossed back and forth between his parents and whirled around. Abruptly, William's accompanying engine and whirring noises shifted to growls as the child's feet hit the floor, and the rowdy screaming and running and chasing began, _pure joy_ , for the " _Daddy Monster_ " was on the prowl once again. William was careful to let his son get a good head start, bellowing out his fierce and boisterous roars, his arms held high and waving about, while he hunched down to morph into some sort of fiend, before he pursued the tiny toddler, and soon after, the familiar, exhilarating screams of fun echoing from down the hall into the kitchen. Julia couldn't have been happier, that is unless she were able to play too, and so she rushed to load the dishes into William's dishwashing cupboard.

Only a moment later, came the howling of pain, and then the blood-curdling screaming cries of the two-year-old, bolting his mother into a run. " _The baby! He's hurt! In the living room_ …" she yielded to the panic. Arriving, the baby had been scooped up into William's arms, his screaming being muffled because his face was buried into William's chest. William was bouncing him _, oddly offset against the height of the emotions_ , he tenderly bounced the child so softly _… a part of her noticing that William had kept his panic in check._ "Shh," she heard him soothe the baby, "Shh. You'll be alright," he calmed.

Unexpectedly however, _for it was not fitting with his demeanor_ , William's eyes pleaded. "He hit his head… on the corner there," William glanced down, felt her eyes follow his, to the corner of the coffee table between the two couches.

" _No blood_ ," she noticed, a sense of relief with the thought. Julia felt herself settling, becoming in control, her emergency mode activated, despite the fact that it was _HER baby_ who had been hurt.

Wailing, absolute abandoned wailing, from the tiny one, William shifted to sit on the couch with the baby in his lap and he tried to get the child to let go of his clinging, to bring him off of his chest to better examine the wound.

William Jr. felt his mother sit down on the couch next to them, and he imagined her soft, warm, plush body holding him, covering him, _and he wanted her so, so badly…_

The little boy's face felt the cool rush of air as he pushed back from his father, his face crimson red, teardrops so big on his cheeks, the salty fluid glistening those long thick lashes of his around his huge brown eyes…

And both parents' eyes grabbed for a glimpse of the already egg-shaped swelling bulging out from under the boy's black banana curls as the toddler reached for his mother, and she took him in her lap, and he pushed his face in her bosom, and he felt so much better, but still the crying continued, rhythmical, calmer, each sob tearing at William's heart.

"It hurts, hmm?" Julia's voice so perfect that it could heal the world, she asked him, taking him into such a soothing rocking, its pace slow, its motion definite, and somehow the cadenced waves of it convinced the child to breathe, to breathe slower and deeper. "I know, Little One," she said, "But it will get better. It won't hurt forever. I promise, Shh, shh," and his Mommy's lips kissed his head, his ear, "You'll be alright. Mommy and Daddy are here."

The tears quelled, and they carried the quieter little boy back into the kitchen and sat him on the kitchen table where Julia could better examine the injury. She reported, more to her hovering husband than to her tiny son, "He'll have a big, colorful bruise for a while, but he's going to be fine." She saw William out of the corner of her eye, take a big breath. She lifted her chin, looked at him.

"Are you angry with me?" he asked her, "for getting him wound up… and then hurting him?"

 _So sincere, he felt the security of the bond sink down into his core_ , she answered simply, "No."

William reached over and slipped his fingers into his son's hair. "I'm sorry Little Man," he vowed.

Using the tone William had grown to trust more than he could remember trusting anything else in his life, Julia said, "William, you have nothing to be sorry for."

And the two shared a look.

Some of their very biggest fights had been about him taking, what Julia believed to be, too big of a risk with their child, and he soaked in the look of her big blue eyes, expecting to find that judgement there now… but he did not. And somehow, she knew from his look, that he needed an explanation. And there was the quickest flash of a memory, from so, so long ago, after she had fought with the Inspector about the validity of women trying to be equal to men, and William had failed to defend her. He had shown up in the morgue, he had been brave enough to ask her why she was angry with him, and she knew, knew for certain then, that _this man_ was special, honest and brave and true, and, _oh,_ she remembered it with such delight, William Murdoch was winsome, he valued her, saw her for who she was, and he would let her be herself, he seemed to even love her for exactly that, for who she was…

Julia took a deep breath, she would help him understand. "Yes, sometimes I feel you take risks that are… beyond… That _I feel_ are too dangerous. But not the way you play with him, William. The way you play with him, it brings him more sheer jubilance than anything I've ever seen… well, perhaps he is an inkling happier when I join in and play with you too. And yes, there is a risk of his getting hurt, but not likely seriously, and…" she shook her head as she imagined ever suggesting that William not play with their son the way he does, and she pushed the thought away, "No… No William, I'm not the slightest bit angry with you for winding him up, or for playing with him rough enough that he got injured… not in the slightest…"

William had not yet wrinkled the corner of his mouth, not yet taken a deep, reassured breath, and so she worried that his inner suffering still raged on.

A smile appeared on Julia's face, she would tease him… _and it worked so instantly_ , William's face lightening in response to the shift…

"Although," her voice had taken on a commanding, scolding tone, "If you do play with him so, _right before_ he has to go to bed, then _you_ need to be the one to reap what you sow, mister, and _you_ will be in charge of getting him to finally go to sleep." She leaned over closer to him and told him more intimately, _finally seeing that adorable, comforting wrinkle crunch up into his cheek as she did so,_ "Otherwise, truth be told, I love it."

"Now," she changed the subject and looked back to the lump on William Jr.'s forehead, "Can you get me one of the cold steaks Eloise has in the icebox?"

"Yes, doctor," he answered her. His step was lively, light. _It really, really was alright._

)

William Jr. stayed up late this night, his mother wanting to keep him from sleeping too soon after he had hit his head. But now, now it was after midnight, and William and Julia had finally tucked him into bed. William's earlier fantasy, _well one of them anyway_ , came true after that, for it was Julia who, very sexily, had undone his tie. Their passions rose, their level of dress fell, until soon they each stood before the other in their skimpiest undergarments.

Breaking off one of their kisses, William told her, a few intermingling kisses between the words, that he needed to take a shower. He pinched the toes of one of his socks to the floor and pulled it off, then the other. Julia helped him lower his underwear, then brazenly taking in the sight of him, magnificent, before she stepped out of her bloomers as well. Only her silky camisole between them, she put her arms around his neck, slipped and scratched her fingers into his hair…

Seductively, Julia nipped at his ear and then whispered into it, "I'm feeling a bit dirty myself tonight, detective… Perhaps I should join you."

 _Oh, the images, the imagined sensations, flooring and swirling both of them, of the soap, and the naked skin, and the taste of the water and the flesh, and the heat and the steam, and the thrusting – OH MY GOD, THE FILTHY, FILTHY, THRUSTING – surged through their bodies into their cores, igniting their flames further, so filled with utter, utter, want…_

William pushed the feelings aside, for it was essential to prolonging their pleasure that he stay in control. He raised his eyebrows at her, feigning shock at her suggestion, but then he stepped in even closer to her and he told her, "I am so glad I married you."

Hot, hot air burst out of her nostrils, cascading over him. Such a sultry expression on her face, and a lusciously lusty tone in her voice, as she doubted playfully, "Despite my scandalous suggestions, detective."

 _In that split second, Julia remembered the time she was furious at Darcy for ripping up the divorce papers, and she was taking her anger out on an archery target, shooting arrow after arrow with precision and force, hitting the bullseye repeatedly as William looked on, speaking with her while standing, and being somewhat awed_ , or was it worried _, at her side. She had made a highly immodest proposal at the time – suggesting that they boldly move in together and live openly in sin, shocking everyone with the outrageousness of it… And, after a time, William had made it clear that they would have to be married if they could ever truly be together, and she was certain that they had both known at the time exactly what it was that he was referring to, and he had wrinkled his face admitting to it, apologizing, and she had loved him so much then, and she had cupped his cheek, with her white-gloved hand… My goodness, she still remembered the tenderness of the moment down into her marrow…_ Suddenly she noticed.

William's expression had grown deliciously cocky. He was surely about to tease her back, "No Julia, not _despite_ your scurrilous suggestions," he said, and he reached behind her, strong and primal, taking what he wanted, grabbing hold of her supple, soft, mushy buttocks, and then riding his hands down the backs of her thighs to spread her legs wide and lift her, opening her, his body the wedge that hers was forced to part around and to mold around, as he lifted her up onto his hips, and he walked the two of them into the bathroom, finding her ear and whispering, "No Julia, it's not despite them… It's because of them."

)

The next morning William Jr.'s knock came at the door to wake them – _to re-wake them really, since the alarm had already rung, but William had turned it off and they had both fallen back to sleep, nude and cozy, interlocked together._ Julia was first out of bed, her hunt for something, _anything_ , to put on desperate. She found her robe, exactly where it should be on its hook in the closet, and as she slipped into it, she hopped and zigzagged and stepped over the piles of clothing strung about all over their bedroom floor, _her corset, his shirt, a shoe_ , kicking her blouse away to open the door, barely a glance to see that William had managed to get into his pajama bottoms, before she opened it to their young son.

She kneeled down on a knee to catch his big morning hug, greeting, "Good morning, Little One." Then she stood and took his small hand in hers, and she noticed William Jr.'s eyes grow wide as they moved from item to item to item to item of their clothing on the floor.

"Mommy and Daddy didn't pick up their mess last night," Julia said with as little emotion as she could muster.

It was William who remembered… remembered that William Jr. had gotten hurt last night, the pang of guilt seeping upwards from his gut. He walked up to them and squatted down in front of the little boy. "How's that lump doing?" he asked, his big Daddy fingers reaching up to gently push aside the black curls.

It was egg-sized, and it was black and green, with a distinct line in the center of it, a brownish-red color, straight and thin, like the corner edge of the coffee table that had caused it.

Julia verbally cringed at the sight of it, working, working to keep the sound inside her head, " _Oh my, that's impressive._ " The youngster would only be frightened if the adults around him reacted badly to the wound. An expert at this, she knew the injury needed to be downplayed, yet without lacking in compassion and care and empathy in doing so.

"My goodness," she said, squatting down next to William, "It did leave a bump… It will hurt for a day or two, but not too bad, in the end, hmm detective?" she invited William to add to their son's reassurance.

"Not too bad," he agreed, and then the Daddy pumped up the playful energy, moving in for a tickling attack, "Not so bad that you're not gonna get tickled!"

 _Oh, the giggling and the playful growling that ensued would erupt any heart with glee with its beautiful sounds._

Julia rushed to the bed and grabbed two pillows. She shoved one between William and his son, arming the toddler, and then proceeded to beat William silly with the other one, the _Daddy Monster_ turning his wrath on the Mommy, giving the little son a slight reprieve. So quickly, William Jr. caught on to his mother's idea… This morning the game was gang up on Daddy, and this was going to be fun – fun – fun!

Finally, the roughhousing had settled down, and Claire-Marie had come to collect William Jr. to ready him for the day while his parents dressed for work. Intermittently, as they put on their various items of clothing, sometimes helping each other, William with her corset – _admiring its more modern, less rigid, structure, and reminding Julia of the time she had almost been killed by a corset_ … her with his shirt buttons and his tie, and while they did this, as tradition held, they would discuss the case.

There was a reluctance in the air, however, to bring it up… and William knew why. It involved talking with her about Neil Catfrey, and he had to admit, it seemed that the subject Neil Catfrey was still a sore spot with him. Thus, it almost had to go the way it went, Julia being the one to bring up the topic.

"You seem to be troubled William," she breached it, "Is it the robbery case?" _Oh, she had timed it so well_ , just as she had begun to move her fingers down the center of his chest, buttoning the buttons on his shirt.

His big sigh told her she was right, and somehow, she alerted herself, _an electrical zing alarming inside, warning her, that his stress would be about what had happened at the Ball with Mr. Catfrey._

It eased him, that she was not peering into his eyes, that her eyes were busy, distracted, less intensely focused on his thoughts than he had feared, as she expertly, agilely, like the surgeon she was, worked on buttoning his buttons… creating an undercurrent of rising sexual tension between them. _He reminded himself, she had asked what was wrong…_

William swallowed, fighting his dry throat…

 _Prompting Julia to stifle a smile_ …

He braved bringing up the man's name, "We cannot find Catfrey, anywhere. It's like he's a ghost, a ghost who just disappeared into thin air."

 _My God_ , her brain trumpeted her intuition and insight and discomfort all in one blast _– she was right!_

"But you will," her quick reassurance, the response automatic at this point.

Yet in the meanwhile, her mind wandered. " _He seems obsessed with Catfrey… There's almost a James Gillies feel to it."_ A creepy nauseous, spine-tingling, gurgling percolated inside of her, requiring a mighty push to hold the sensations at bay. " _Neil Catfrey is no James Gillies, Julia_ ," she scolded herself, an obvious effort to minimize the feelings, to cope with the disturbing association. " _Besides, committing robbery is never going to be comparable to committing cold-blooded murder, no matter how ingenious the thief…"_

 _(Interesting, isn't it, that Julia did not seem to notice her own admiration of Catfrey, giving him much more credit than any evidence yet compiled warranted that he deserved?")_

She had not yet decided to breach the subject, so she felt a bit surprised, herself, when her words flowed out asking him, "You appear to be very focused on this one possible suspect, William… even though you, yourself, admit that there is not much evidence against him…" Julia's mind charged down a tangent, sarcastically saying to herself what she had managed to keep inside her head, " _Not much more evidence than that the rather handsome man made advances towards your wife, at least…_ " Regret, so suddenly, outweighed everything else, the reminder landing hard, of _her_ part in it all, as the memory replayed in her mind of William pounding away mercilessly at his weights that night.

 _ **Wham**_ , the connection between them locked, her pale-blue eyes more like a glowing warm candle than an electrified sparkle of lightning. Hovering so very close to a whisper, sucking him in, drawing him nearer and nearer, and his eyes, framed in those gorgeous black lashes of his, grew wider, and bigger and more and more captivating, and the burn in her heart, enormous, luminous, gave the moment immense importance, and she said to him, to the love her life, "You do know, don't you…?" And Julia dug down for the courage to say it, to bring it up again, and then to finally slay it, "Neil Catfrey is no challenge to you, William… I mean as far as what happened… at the Ball. It was just a fleeting moment, just a brief shiny object that caught my eye, nothing more… like that dream you had about Eva Pearce, remember?

William pinched his lips together, wrinkled one side of his mouth. He had to admit it was true. The wrinkle grew deeper right before he added, "I suppose I am still jealous, to be honest… about Catfrey." He wrinkled his brow…

 _A look of confusion, puzzled?_

"You seemed above all that," he said, "When I told you about kissing Miss Pearce…" it seemed his throat was suddenly become cottony-dry again, and he needed to swallow, "Um, in my dream…" nervously reaching up to rub just above his eye, "You weren't jealous…"

"William," her tone correcting, "You know perfectly well that I get jealous too… Honestly – think about it." _Her mind played up the devastation it had caused in her – watching him as he fantasized about being with a waitress that had flirted with him that awful night, back when she was pregnant… and then when her whole world collapsed because he had kept his dirty secret from her, that he was staying with Madam Ettie Weston, his former lover, in Winnipeg, back when he and George went undercover as hobos riding the trains…_

William's brain had dashed down the same paths, and he nodded acknowledging their shared truths. "But not, with Eva…"

"Don't kid yourself, William. I was jealous then too. Eva Pearce knew it. That's why she played the cards she played. Eva was a bit to me, like James Gillies was to you. And just as James Gillies used me to get to you, Eva Pearce used you… to get to me," Julia divulged her thoughts from so long ago, her thoughts on so much.

She looked away, her eyes finding his chosen tie waiting, draped on the foot of their bed. She would change the subject, let it all sink in.

"Now detective, tell me why you are so focused on this Catfrey fellow as your suspect. There must be more to it than all this flirting and jealousy… knowing your brilliant mind. What's bothering you, hmm?" her sultry touch tingling him down lower and lower and lower. "What little detail, that no one else would ever even notice, has caught you so?" she asked him, the mood back to seductive as she lifted his shirt collar and wrapped his masculine tie behind his neck, pulled both ends taut to step him closer to her and then brought it end over end to tie the knot, and allowed her fingers the pleasure of sliding down the length of it, the delicate skin on the back of her hand pressing firmer than need be against his chest and stomach muscles for the ride down, all the while feeling his big, warm, chocolate eyes on her again as she feigned complete focus on tying the tie.

Answering her question, despite the primal stirrings she was erupting in him, William said, "I think Catfrey is American."

Julia nodded. _It was true. She hadn't noticed, and yet she believed, as usual, that William was right, that he had detected some little hint that, to her, was not quite as conscious as it was to him._ Her natural curiosity caught her, her own brilliant mind interested now in, chasing after the clues. "What made you think so?" she asked.

"It's his swagger, Julia. He seemed to me to be, well… so American, with his brashness…" _And then, in just the tiny spark of a second, William flashed a memory, from way back when he was in England with Anna Fulford. At the time he could not even remember his own name, and he had flirted with her, teasing her after she had expressed relief in finding out that he was not a priest. Boldly, and he had thought rather winsomely, he had told Anna that she felt that way because she was carnally interested in him. She had called him "brash" at the time – brash like a New Yorker…_

Uncomfortable all of a sudden, William cleared his throat. Still, his voice was scratchy as he started explaining, "I detected an accent…" William squinted an eye to look more deeply inward at his memories of Catfrey from that night, much like one might do when using a microscope. "And he watched me, out of the corner of his eye. I had thought it was because much of his… pleasure…" _building pressure made William swallow,_ "in winning you, was the jealousy he was causing in the man he was stealing you from… in me, but…"

Suddenly, William worried that Julia would feel the shame she had felt upon her first discovering Catfrey's likely true motives all over again, the shame of publicly being used so despicably by a man as attractive and arrogant and cunning as Neal Catfrey, yet, he still pushed through, "But now, now I think he knew, um, that he knew that I am… who I am…"

 _Julia noted to herself that it was not only her husband's suspect who was a bit cocky._ The noticing brought a hint of a smile to her face.

William had gone on, "It's simply that I have a sense that Mr. Catfrey was concerned about my being there that night, that he was keeping an eye on me… and that makes me suspicious of him, is all."

William's focus pierced deeply into her with his conclusion. The last time he had told her of these same thoughts she had become quite angry, then later ashamed, and Julia sensed his caution. She found she was grateful for his concern, for his care. She nodded, for she agreed, and they were alright now, and she felt an inkling of relief, for they seemed to have thoroughly gotten to the other side of this particular bump in their relationship once and for all.

William took one of her wispy curls in his fingers, a sure sign that all was well with them, similar in this regard to her fondling of his tie. "I um, I looked into what treasures were on display at the museum the night of the Ball, that he might have stolen that night, and that had gone, as yet, undetected… Everything seems in order, but it is possible that Catfrey could be that good… both as a counterfeiter and as a thief. Another possibility that worries me, though, is that he may not have been there that night to steal something, but rather to prepare for stealing something bigger in the future. The catering company that worked the Ball that night… They work many such art exhibits and fancy galas and such, and… well it might have been reconnaissance on Catfrey's part, for something he's planning next. I… I was thinking, well, unfortunately I can't be there because of our Halloween party, but there is a big event coming up…"

"Yes, Thurston Howell's Howell-oween Bash," Julia interrupted him. "We were invited, William. I'm sure I told you. But I had to turn down the invitation." Her interest was piqued.

"It's at the Riverdale Zoo…" he continued.

Julia's head nodded excitedly. _She had heard about all the details. It was quite thrilling_. Tilting her head in closer to him, she elaborated, "Yes… Because they have on display a rare pink diamond. It's the talk of the town, William… on loan from France, I hear. The "Pink Panther," it's called."

His eyes widened, "I think it might be what Catfrey's after…"

"I believe I have an idea to help you, detective. Leave having a Constabulary presence at the Howell's big occasion to me," Julia concluded, both with his tie and with her filling him in on her plan.

Her final detail in dressing for the day was doing her hair, thus she sat down at her vanity, leaving William to do his vest and his jacket and his shoes on his own.

"If I'm right, and Catfrey is an American," William said, feet stepping into shoes at the same time he buttoned his vest, "then Alan Clegg would likely know of him. He's in town, I hear." A frown took his face, "It will mean contacting Meyers, in order to contact Clegg," he revealed the cause of the grimace.

Julia immediately smelled the mirage of the irritating spy's cigar smoke lingering in the air. "A price you'll have to pay, detective," she teased him.

Her giggle sparkled the air in response to William's displaying her expected and beloved expression, his ' _admitting it'_ face beautifully mingled with his eyebrow-up ' _scolding her'_ face.

William stepped up to his dresser and opened the top drawer for the most important part of his workday morning routine – _his badge_.

 _Irresistible_ , Julia completed her pièce de résistance, freeing a curl to dangle at the edge of her face, exactly as she knew enticed him, tempted him to touch, to use the lock as a way to get closer to her when he flirted with her, and then she stood and approached him.

 _My God, she adored this man_ , currently her fascination reveling in the silvery Toronto shield pinned to his chest. Her fingers longed to stroke it, to feel the smooth, cool, hard, sleek metal of it. She yielded to the urge, and again, she felt the power of his gaze on her. "You are the best detective the world has ever known, even if all the world doesn't actually know it, William. You'll get him," she encouraged.

 _Remembering the letter from the Association of Pathologists the night before, and Julia's delicious words after the opera all those years ago, before she had kissed him in public, her in that gorgeous golden dress and her white-flower speckled hair, saying to him, "We'll find it, William," and then holding her ground when he questioned her use of the word "WE,"_ William added, "Yes," and he gave her a gallant nod, "Me, and a quite famous, award-winning pathologist. I've been told _**we**_ make a good team…" his smile lit her heart, "You're right, Julia… We'll find him."

Loving the sight of this man filled with confidence, something nagged in the back of her mind, an irritating warning to prepare for the inevitable, for there was always a cost, something or another that would dampen the high. _And oh_ , she remembered it with a sink, _there was the other case, the one that had burdened them so with the press, with the public…_

She caught his eye, then dropped away before returning, the gesture alerting him, preparing him. "It seems we might have to put the Body Dumper case into the, very rare, loss column for the great Detective William Henry Murdoch, though," she told the downside. His sigh followed.

 _Adorable, they both gave each other William's usual 'admitting it' corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle._

Unwilling to accept defeat, he asked her to look over the victim's autopsy report once more. She agreed. Has class was meeting tonight at the University, and she suggested to him that they have her students read the postmortem report too, Julia stating, "They would most assuredly be interested… after all, they were there that day…" Then Julia provided a detail he had forgotten, "It was the Fall Equinox, remember? We were burying our first body for our study… on Seasonal Effects on Human Decomposition. I'm sure they'd jump through hoops to help you solve it." Her eyes twinkled as she waited for his response.

"Very good," he gave.

He offered her his elbow and they headed downstairs for breakfast together.

Picturing that day in her mind, all the students and her in two different carriages, venturing out to their Murdoch Body Farm, and then the press hounding them about her reasons for wanting to adopt a child when they got there, and then discovering a body on their property… again. It was a good thing that she and the students had already buried their subject before the gruesome discovery had been made. Stirring up the memories prompted her to say, "It seems so long, to think that that body we buried that day has been under the ground all this time… just lying there and weathering the forces of nature, and it's really been just over a month. We won't be burying the next body until just before Christmas – on the Winter Solstice… William Jr.'s birthday, the shortest day of the year."

Weighty, William interjected, "It felt like the **longest** one to me," _and his mind raced away with its imagining their being back on that day that William Jr. was born, and dealing with the stark terror that they had battled, devastating, the petrifying thought that Julia would die in labor… and their baby too, all because of a badly timed snowstorm, and the panic stole the blood out of him, leaving his muscles so heavy they dove for the floor with the unbelievable stress of the memories of_ _ **him**_ _having to be the one to perform the Cesarean section on her…_ _ **HIM**_ _being their only hope…_

Julia giggled, stopping them there at the halfway turn in their staircase to step in close to him. Her laugh telling him that she had made the connection to the same thing. "Yes, it must have," her fingers slipped into his hair, "You are truly an amazing man, William Henry Murdoch," she whispered.

) (

Toiling away at the stove, Eloise's mind swatted away the reason she was preparing this particular dish, the worrisome memory of Claire-Marie informing her that the couple had been highly distressed when they had arrived home from the Ball the two nights ago. And she had noticed yesterday morning that the doctor's eyes were swollen, and she knew then that the doctor had been crying – hard. " _The detective was NOT on the couch either morning_ ," she reminded herself, seeking evidence that the couple she had come to love so much was fine.

She flipped over the golden pieces of toast in the pan. This morning she had made the doctor's favorite – French Toast, hoping to offer her mistress her support, her comfort. As she stirred the bacon, the scent hit her nostrils and triggered different, older, memories – this time tugging at her compassion for the detective, who had returned from his horrible ordeal back when he had been working undercover as a hobo down on his luck, ending up in Chicago's meat-packing plants. He had walked in the door – emaciated, dirty, and wholly distraught with his need for his soul mate's arms. Eloise had never felt such a force between two people as she had felt between the doctor and the detective that day when he had walked unexpectedly back into their kitchen, unexpectedly coming home.

A big sigh moved her thoughts onward, back to the bacon… _he had been so extremely aversive to even the smell of pork after his return._ Revolting images flashed, pictures of what she had told herself must have happened to him, pictures in her mind of Detective Murdoch cringing and yet still doing it – slaughtering helpless, squealing, thrashing animals, the brutality and cruelty damaging his sensitive soul.

Her mind meandered, connecting the recent to the old, the detective had betrayed his wife so badly back then… There had been quite a few nights on the couch. Dr. Ogden was pregnant at the time, mere weeks away from giving birth to his child. And, although details were never fully disclosed, she had never seen the doctor so distressed in all their years together. She had been absolutely terrified the couple wouldn't be able to recover from it…

 _My,_ she marveled at the fact that she had known the doctor for such a long, long time, and she knew she loved the woman, admired and adored the woman, and the world was so, so hard on her. There was a loyalty, an odd, almost motherly bond, she felt with the doctor. And she remembered that she had known the doctor, and thus the detective, since before the doctor had left him, left her home in Toronto, for Buffalo… And there she had met that Garland fellow… and such unbelievable disasters ensued from that union. _The first clue_ , she remembered, shaking her head, _that the toff doctor from Buffalo had been a bad choice for Dr. Ogden was the man's insistence that they NOT employ_ _ **HER**_ _after they had married, hiring instead that dreadful Miriam Weller. Still to this day, the sight of that horrid woman testifying on the stand in court filled her with putrid, burning, nausea. Dr. Garland was shrewd alright,_ Eloise nodded to herself _, for the man's instincts were right about the situation, for Eloise was incredibly loyal to Dr. Ogden, and if Eloise had been in their household, it would have swayed the power balance in Dr. Ogden's favor._ Her lips pinched tight, fighting the anger, _under Dr. Garland's calm demeanor, Eloise had always seen it, the man was secretly all about power, especially when it came to his wife. In that and so many other ways, so very different from the detective…_

"Bon jour," came the greeting in Claire-Marie's cheerful and tutorial voice.

Eloise turned from the stove to see the pretty young nanny enter the kitchen holding hands with the couple's little boy. _The boy was gorgeous, and often it caught her how very much he looked like the detective, those melty big brown eyes, and those outstandingly long dark eyelashes, his expression bright and curious and confident from underneath all those soft ringlets of curls – one of the only outward features that the child inherited from his mother_. Her mind darted down a path, flaring her fury with the newspapers all over again for attacking her employers with such a vengeance for their wanting to adopt another child. And then, counterbalancing against that, she reminded herself of the miracle of this one, and right there and then, she thanked the Lord for the millionth time for gracing the couple with this child.

"Bon jour," William Jr. gleamed. He bolted forward in an effort to see what was cooking on the stove, only to be restrained in his efforts by his nanny, who quickly lifted the toddler up into her arms.

"Master Murdoch," Eloise greeted the boy, "Bon jour to you too."

Claire-Marie continued her French lesson, walking over to allow the child to see. "Pain perdu," the nanny encouraged the little child.

"Pain perdu. Yummy," William Jr. said.

Overhearing the French play, William piped in as he entered, "Le petit singe est comme sa mère quand il s'agit de pain perdu," enjoying the opportunity to call his son a 'little monkey.' William opened his arms for his son, Claire-Marie handing him off.

"Oui, c'est vrai," Claire-Marie replied, adding in English, "about the toast, and his mother, _**and**_ _the monkey_ ," she teased.

The boy recognized the pet name his father often used for him when they roughhoused together, repeating it for the fun of the game, "Singe! Singe!"

William lowered William Jr. down into his highchair.

The delicious smells and banter and smiles, the happiness bordering on momentary perfection, Julia thanked Eloise for making her favorite breakfast in all the world, gushing, "Oh Eloise, this is wonderful! You made French Toast!"

"Pain perdu, Mommy," William Jr. corrected her.

Julia leaned down to cup her son's cheek, topping it off with a kiss, "Of course, Little One. You have a very good point. It is French, so we shall say it in French… 'Pain perdu' it is."

The family sat and breakfast was served.

The vase of pink roses William had brought home for her last night graced the center of the kitchen table. _The blooms had opened to their epitome overnight_ , Julia noticed as she found herself gazing at the sight, the glowing colors and the stark shadows and the glistening rainbows of sparkles from the crystal vase, all stunning, in the morning light. Julia admired the cheery effervescence they give off. A wondering crossed her mind, about his uncommon choice of the color…

"William," she said drawing his chocolate eyes, "Do you think you picked this color… pink I mean, for the roses – it's not a color you usually choose," she noted, "Do you think it was because of the **Pink** Panther Diamond?"

He wrinkled a corner of his mouth, charming her. "One of those psychological Freudian slips in action, perhaps?" he suggested.

Sweet, her smile. "Well, that is not exactly how Freudian slips work," her tone becoming professorial, she took a sip of her coffee, "But it isn't called 'psychological' because it lacks 'logic.' And there is a logic to it, if you think about it." Her blue eyes to his, she explained, "You had the _Pink_ Panther Diamond, and your concerns that Mr. Catfrey would steal it, on your subconscious mind when you must have had the urge to choose _pink_. See…?" she nodded with him, "Your unconscious drove your decision. It makes perfect sense."

Clearing off the serving dishes, Eloise added, "That's the famous French diamond, isn't it? The one they have for the big Halloween party at the Riverdale Zoo?"

The couple nodded, each reaching for a sip of their warm morning beverage, coffee in her case, tea in his.

"I see another connection," Eloise piqued their curiosity, their eyes widening with interest. "Well, they are holding that big gala at the zoo precisely because of the play on words – the pink " _ **panther…**_ " Where else would you find a _**panther**_ in Toronto than at the zoo?" Then she interjected a further thought as her mind made the connections, rocking their subconscious worlds a bit, bringing the hidden ever so close to the surface, giving a subliminal jolt to the potential sub-rosa connections involved in the case, "And your suspect, detective… the man you believe is interested in stealing this Pink _Panther_ Diamond, he's named _**CAT**_ -frey, of all things… Like he's going to FREE the CAT when he steals this priceless _**panther**_. You see?" she asked.

William felt it, a cold shudder that needed to be repressed, with the foreshadowing of it.

As she often did, Julia eased his stress, asking, "I wonder if the Riverdale Zoo even has panthers?"

"Oh, I believe so," Eloise answered…

And William tried to hang on to their conversation, to fight the odd panic building inside of himself. _He needed to be at the zoo that night. How could he possibly break it to Julia that he would not be here for their own Halloween Party…?_

Eloise turned her attention to William Jr., sitting in his highchair, amazing the way such a young child could sometimes be so enthralled by adult conversation. "Master Murdoch," she asked the boy, "tell us, did you see lions and tigers and panthers, at the zoo?"

An excited slap on the highchair tray proceeded the toddlers shout, "Hip-po-po-po-mus," he tried again to say the challenging word his mother had taught him that day with the colorful, fun-shaped, leaves in the Park.

"Very good," Julia beamed at his efforts, "You quite liked the hippo-pot-o-mus, didn't you?" she continued her subtle teaching. "But, were there any panthers?" she got back to the point, then considering that the two-year-old may not know exactly what a panther was, she added, "Were there any really big cats at the zoo?"

"Tigers!" William Jr. remembered the word associated with the sleek, striped cats in the cage.

"Those are the big, big, cats that have stripes on them, right?" his mother said, her pride showing.

"Mm-hmm," her son answered her, exaggerating the excitement of seeing the wild jungle animal with big nods.

"I suppose that's close enough to a panther," she gave.

Julia's mind traveled back to her brilliant husband and his subconscious decision to bring her pink roses last night, " _dealing with two subconscious dreads in one fell swoop_ ," she reasoned. Thinking it through she named both of his fears, _William would worry about losing the Pink Panther Diamond… and losing her, losing his cherished wife, both to be taken by the nefarious, suave ghost, the handsome and charming Mr. Neil Catfrey… His buying her flowers again, the second day in a row for no apparent reason, and their being PINK, defended, on some deep, unconscious level inside of him, against BOTH potential thefts._ " _Quite logical in the end."_

) (

A strange chill fired through him as George knocked on his office door and informed him that Neil Catfrey had just walked into the stationhouse and requested to speak with him. _The man had come to him, had appeared suddenly out of nowhere, the very moment he had picked up the phone to call Alan Clegg._

William placed the receiver back in the cradle. "Show him into the Interview Room, constable," William replied. He did not notice, but George did, the detective's fingers reached up to rub his fretted brow. William's heart raced, and his inner voice coached him… _**He**_ _was the detective here. Catfrey was the suspect, but still, William didn't want the man to know he was a suspect. This was going to take some finesse_.

There was a sigh. Catfrey would use what had happened with Julia to throw him off his game, he was certain of it. He needed to be ready for it. And then he thought it again. There was another nagging problem on his mind, _these robberies aren't Catfrey's style. Too hands-on, too dirty… relying on a knife, drawing attention to the committing of the crime. A snake like Catfrey would prefer stealth and cunning._ _But_ , William reminded himself of the other side of the argument, _blatantly, Catfrey had gone after Julia, right in front of her husband, no effort to hide what he was doing, shoving it out into the forefront. Maybe it was the man's style after all, to be showy, blustery._ William shook his head. Every instinct he had denied it. Yet, he knew Catfrey was involved, somehow.

A deep breath, William lifted the nearly empty file he had been studying all morning. He would add the few notes scribbled down from what Meyers had just told him. There was not much. Catfrey had claimed to be involved in technology manufacturing. That could be just about anything, and all matter of investigation of such industries had not yielded locating the man.

William opened the file, picked up a photograph. A huge sigh escaped as his eyes absorbed the image for the umpteenth time. A reporter had provided it, in response to being questioned. He and his photographer had been at the Ball that night covering the story for the Gazette. His intention was to use the photo for a gossip story _**on them**_ , more scandal for himself and Julia. William pictured the headlines, "An Affair at the Affair…" the next one worse, "Green-eyed, Murdoch Pursues Suspect for Cuckolding Not Robbery…"

And William's mind flew into the past – of another photograph of Julia in the arms of a man other than her husband, back then, filling the sordid headlines. Only back then the man was _**him**_ , and the husband was Darcy, and the affair that was splashed all over the papers had been exposed at the Policemen's New Year's Ball at the turn of the century. Pressure building, William blew out some steam through his pursed lips. His eyes focused back down on the photograph in his hand. This picture showed Julia dancing with Catfrey, not with him. A wave of anger clenched his jaw. _He had danced at least a dozen times with his wife that night, not one photograph of that…_

He took a deep breath. Catfrey's face was clear in the picture, and they had blown it up and distributed it to the constables to use when looking for witnesses. _Useless now, it appeared._

Back to the case.

Scant papers in the file, there were no Canadian citizens with the name Neil Catfrey, at least none in their early thirties. Also, no Americans with that name lived in Toronto as of the census in 1901. Meyers had claimed to know nothing of a man named Neil Catfrey, Canadian or American… William's heart taking up its thundering again, he noted that the Canadian spy had made an obnoxious comment about the photograph of Catfrey dancing with Julia – telling him that the reporter was going to use it in his story in this evening's edition. Meyers had taken credit for stopping the man, about to say that it was in the interest of, "national security, an offense of treason, punishable by death," before William had interjected it. Another sigh, truth be told, he was greatly relieved the story had been stopped, even though it meant he had to thank the arrogant Mr. Meyers. Julia's reputation would have been utterly shattered by such innuendo and scandal as her flirting – _**again**_ – with a man other than her husband in public.

It hummed quietly in the background though, William's treasured memory of that unbelievable night, Julia in that stunning red dress, there to see _him_ , to tell _him_ … _that HE was the one_. The kissing had simply been impossible to quell…

The thought jumped to the forefront, _the case_. Significant, it was Meyers who had brought it up – concern about the Pink Panther Diamond. An obvious clue unintentionally given up, that William's instincts that Catfrey was connected to these robberies, and to targeting this priceless jewel next, were founded. " _The Howell's event was only a few days away…"_ the thought re-stirred his unease.

Another sigh, he did not like playing catch up. According to Meyers, Alan Clegg was in town officially because of the US government's talks on passing the Pure Food and Drug Act. Meyers had blamed, "your friend, Murdoch…" _thus indirectly blaming him_ , "…Mr. Upton Sinclair, from your fellow hoboing days in the Chicago meatpacking 'jungle,' who is responsible for this whole Clegg food industry mess." William had wondered what the fact that the Americans were here poking their noses into Canadian food industries, supposedly in an effort to bypass their new legal restrictions by doing business with Canadian companies, had to do with Catfrey and the robberies and the Pink Panther Diamond. Of course, Terrence Meyers disclosed his suspicions, expecting William to fix the problem. Meyers said he believed there is much more to Clegg's being here at this particular time, at the same time as the French loaning of the Pink Panther Diamond to Thurston Howell for his big party, that he knew it was espionage of some sort, that it was more than just coincidence. He had indicated that further proof was provided by the fact that there was a notable female American who had recently appeared on the art exhibit scene in Toronto. William wrinkled his brow _, it was the way Meyers had said it, as if it were something – someone, he should know_. The suspicious woman was a pretty blond, pretending to be a toff, supposedly married to a wealthy Parisian.

Tossing the notes into the folder, William frowned. Any reasonable detective would not include such drivel as evidence, or clues, or of value of any sort to this case. He was grasping at straws, and it made him feel sick.

)

Catfrey stood when William entered the room. The man looked directly into his eyes as he offered, "Detective Murdoch, we meet again…"

"Mr. Catfrey," William tried so hard to hide his smirk. _He felt it though, he had failed_. " _Glib_ ," he noticed Catfrey's response. Reassuring himself, he reminded, _they mess up easier when they think they have the upper hand._ William opened an arm gesturing for Catfrey to sit. "Tell me, why are you here?" he asked.

Catfrey delayed sitting, hoping to have the detective lower himself first. He changed the subject. "I hear your lovely wife, Julia…" he paused and pretended he had made a mistake in using her first name rather than her title, correcting, "…Dr. Ogden, is the pathologist who works with you here. Is that how the two of you met?" he held eye contact.

 _Annoyingly_ , _William noticed the man's eyes were his most outstanding feature, blue… like Julia's, but somehow even more striking._

Gaining better control, William suppressed a frown. More directly he stated, "Have a seat, Mr. Catfrey." He waited for the man to do so. William remained standing and went on. "Why have you come here?" he asked again, unswayed.

"I heard you were looking for me," Catfrey replied, offering nothing more.

"From whom?" William pushed.

Catfrey placed both hands on the table and leaned forward, "I simply _**heard**_ it, that shall have to suffice for now." Pointed, feeling confident that it would get the conversation moving to where he preferred, Catfrey gave, "I also _heard_ you were working on the robbery that occurred the night we met. I do have some ideas about that. I thought I might be of some assistance."

 _Smug_ , the word landed in William's mind. "And how would that be?" William asked.

"It seems to me from what has been reported in the papers, that the culprit would have to have known _exactly_ when the Banner's were arriving at their home. And I have an idea how that could be done…" Catfrey leaned closer, "Without needing a partner."

William scoffed, "And why do you think the robber did not have a partner?" _Infuriating, William held his emotions at bay, for he had reasoned that the robber would have had to have been working with a partner. There would be no other way for him to know precisely when to appear at the victim's front door. Most likely, he had waited at a location near the home for a phone call to alert him of the exact time to act…_

"First off, it is better to work alone, less chance of a mess up or involving someone you can't trust," Catfrey stated the obvious and then appeared to gloat about it.

 _It bothered William to no end, being this off-balance._ He lowered his center of gravity, widened his stance. He questioned, "And the robber's method of being in the right place at the necessary time – not too early, not too late…?"

Catfrey received William's side glance.

"Detective, I work with technologies designed to accomplish much in tiny spaces," Catfrey said, stiffly leaving his hands on the table, a conscious decision to make him appear trustworthy, as he leaned back into his chair, more casual, and at ease. The man's eyes looked away as he decided to alter his approach. Directly, they peered back, "You have quite a reputation, detective…"

The slightest nod of recognition from William, _while he told himself the man had moved to flattery to distract._

"You are said to be brilliant," Catfrey went on, "And, let's just say it's in my best interest not to give away my business secrets…"

" _or contacts_ ," Catfrey thought to himself…

Catfrey tapped his fingers and added, "There have been recent breakthroughs… And… suffice it to say it is possible to know when a particular thing is happening, say such a thing as that the Banner's were leaving the Ball at a particular time…"

William interrupted, "And how is that?" pushing for Catfrey to give more.

Catfrey paused, smiled. "Trade secrets, I'm afraid detective," Catfrey said, pushing his chair back, crossing his legs and cupping his hands in his lap, seemingly closing the topic. "You'll have to take my word for it," Catfrey replied. "I'll give you a hint though. Ironically, in order for you to be successful when you pursue this, at least one of _you_ must come out of the picture."

Then, so quickly, Catfrey whipped it out, his tactic intended to steal away the clue he had just given, to blindside his opponent at just the right moment so that he would appear to have been helpful, and in the end to have given nothing at all. "And speaking of pictures, it seems we have a friend in common, detective – I first met her in Turkey over a decade ago…" Catfrey seemed to revel in going back to his memories. He chuckled and shook his head at himself, working to appear humble, "I was so young, a starving artist. And she was… intriguing, and beautiful." Catfrey's eyes bounced back to William's as he added, "There's just something about your first."

William's level of annoyance forced him to stiffen his jaw. _At the same time his brain was running rampant in an effort to identify this woman he had brought up. He remembered what Meyers had told him about there being a pretty blond American… And there was something about Turkey… And a picture…"_

An exasperated sigh, William interjected, "Mr. Catfrey, I don't see how this has anything to do…"

Ignoring him, Catfrey continued, "Of course, I never expected to see her again. But then, there she was in Paris, along with all these revolutionary modern artists, Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh. Sally enjoyed painting herself. She had a quite unique style, the canvas filled with interesting cubes and triangles and geometric figures all in primary colors, all hints of hidden sultry truths…"

 _ **Wham**_ – William's mind flew to it. _"_ _ **Sally! …Painting!"**_ He saw it in his mind _, Sally Pendrick in the nude, her naked portrait being painted, but the portrait was so abstract and obscure that no one would see it for what it was meant to be._ _ **Except Julia!**_ _Julia had seen it! She had teased him so mercilessly about the red triangle at the apex of her thighs, calling it a shocking display of the torso of a woman…_

Catfrey's voice smudged and drowned out, he meandered through insignificant details, "Sally insists Picasso was enamored by her strange, broken-glasslike shapes in her paintings. She contends Pablo will be imitating the style soon enough." Catfrey stood, the motion pulling William to focus. The man took his hat, preparing to end the interview.

William braced, for Catfrey's expression had grown cocky.

"From what I understand, you, more than anyone, detective, can appreciate Sally's style," the suspect colluded. "Actually, her portrait is the reason I've come to Toronto. And according to Sally, there is only one other man in world she would want to have it…" and then he glanced knowingly into William's eyes, accusing him, "that is besides you, detective. And that man is me. Of course, you're a married man now, and a beautiful wife you have at that…" _Catfrey nearly chuckled at the frozen stare the detective glared back at him. Confident he had hit the right nerve, he went on_ , "Unfortunately, neither of us currently possesses this painting. It seems a Canadian man she had taken up with here in Toronto before I met her in Turkey has absconded with it…"

William's mind rushed to fill in the name, " _James Pendrick_."

At first I was told he had taken it with him to Panama…" Catfrey widened his eyes, "Now that was quite a wild goose-chase…"

Regaining a semblance of footing, William interrupted, "And what surname does this ' _Sally_ ' go by now?"

"Sally Hubbard, detective," he confided, placing his hat on his head, tipping it with a suave tilt. Suddenly respectful, he asked, "Am I free to go now?"

"Just one more thing," William responded, "Is Sally Hubbard here in Toronto?"

Holding back the urge to swallow, Catfrey answered, "Not to my knowledge, detective. Is that all?"

"I will need to be able to contact you. You can leave the information with Constable Crabtree," William said opening the Interview Room door, George revealed waiting on the other side of the screen to receive the suspect. "And don't leave Toronto without notifying me Mr. Catfrey," William asserted his power over the man.

"Of course, detective," Catfrey tilted his hat, only to have to take it off as he left with George.

) (

So much about this Pink Panther was sub rosa, hidden, secret. And time was of the essence. And William felt so scattered. _He needed to be at this Howell-oween Bash!_ ButJulia had said she would take care of it. Such conflict, he wondered at himself, _why did he have such an urge to keep the possible involvement of Sally Pendrick a secret… especially from Julia. It made no sense… And what to make of this odd clue of Catfrey's – that one of you has to come out of the picture in order to pursue the robbery case?_ Needless to say, William reached up and rubbed his brow. Odd, he had the urge again, to buy Julia flowers. He went to his drawing board and picked up the chalk, starting with the latest clues. "Sally Hubbard," then, "Catfrey – artist," then adding, "Turkey," and then, "Paris." William's head tilted to the side, and he just knew he had to write the word… "pursue." Once again, a big sigh escaped. " _What a mess_ ," he complained to himself, " _What a big, big mess_."

)) ((

And so, the story continues to twist and turn, all obscurely headed downstream towards the decision in the end – answering for us ultimately after the fun of riding-out the adventure, whether it will be the Lady, or the Tiger that is chosen. Is it William who faces this final choice, as we would expect? And who is this _**lady**_? Julia, quite likely… Or could it be Sally Pendrick, secretly the whole time really only a masquerade for her true identity, Sally Hubbard? After all, she had escaped all those years ago, after her evil plot had failed, foiled by our beloved detective in her efforts to become rich by selling the lethal microwave deathray machine to Turkey. Interesting, isn't it, that William's decision to pursue Sally Hubbard all those years ago had cost him Julia, forever to remember the agony of seeing merely her train's caboose, it's lonely trail of smoke puffing up into the sky, disappearing out of his life? And what of this _**tiger**_? Could it be the Pink Panther Diamond? And how does the Body Dumper fit into all of this? Could he be Catfrey too? Could this suave and untrustworthy mystery man be the murderer of the unidentifiable victim buried at the Murdoch's, now award-winning, Body Farm, his face shot off, with the only real clue in that case being the strangely-shaped bruise caught in the process of healing when the victim had died, revealed on the back of the victim's thigh by William's inventive use of ultraviolet light photography? And then there is what will come of Julia's attending Sunday morning Mass with William, and what effect, if any, doing so will have on their hopes of adopting a second child. It may be worth noting that a raging river is always undoubtedly downstream from its tributaries, its many, many influxes of little brooks and streams that feed into it, and that each one of these is needed to make the voyage flow. Remember, what all rivers are headed for is that final _**SEA**_. And so here, at what is likely only a halfway point to this long and winding story, you are reassured that we are also headed for you, too, to ultimately reach that big, and final… _**SEE**_.


	11. 11: Mountains out of MOLEhillsT

Chapter 11: Making Mountains out of MOLE-Hills?

The moment William stepped in the front door, still beaming from having just encountered his own latest invention, the startling pop-up monster haunting their porch for Halloween, he sensed the buzz – women's lively voices from the kitchen, and the dining room too, along with the tinkling of dishes and the scent of a comfy dinner in the air, and delightfully, the lively pitter-patters up the stairs from the playroom, Claire-Marie calling after her charge.

"Daddy's home!" the pronouncement from his little son as he barreled full-speed ahead towards his Daddy's wide-eyed catch.

So much information for William's brain to grasp in the mere four seconds it would take until the boy was heartily embraced and surged into boisterous play, flooded with his Daddy's smiles and his adoring or teasing declarations, all packaged up in his Daddy's love. The toddler had been dressed up in his Halloween costume, explaining his heightened level of excitement. For his first real Halloween, the little child was Triton, the princely-son of the King of the Sea, King Neptune, and his queen, Salacia. The costume was amazingly realistic, the rubberized fishtail hugging William Jr.'s legs, shortening his tiny stride, and it dangled up in the air behind him, bobbing and bouncing about, producing a fishlike swimming motion in his son's wake.

"Why Master Neptune, you are quite the fast swimmer!" William declared, the child landing with a soft thud to then be catapulted upward into raucous 'flight.' William Jr. was his parents' child, and so he was quick for his age, catching onto his father's game instantly as he felt his own body flattened out in the space as his Daddy's strong arms lifted and dropped and whirled him forward in the imaginary waves of the ocean, and William Jr. extended his arms out in front of him, to stroke them out to his sides and then backwards, pretending to be swimming through the deep sea.

Julia appeared, finishing up with the final details as the caterers took their leave, an ear-to-ear smile on her face watching her husband with her son. A flash of memory followed her thought – _that their child had inherited her penchant for swimming_ – her body remembering the inner terror and adrenalin, her skin re-feeling the cold saltwater slide around her as she had dived in, plunged into the bottom of the sinking ship to save William… his homburg floating there the clue, the certainty, that had blasted her into that uncanny realm of instinct. Desperate to find him, to save him… not a choice, just pure action.

Her own voice sounded, bursting the memory bubble, "Like a fish to water, hmm, Little One," she beamed.

"Just like his mother," William said. "Well done, Little Man," he cheered, then shifted the boy down onto his hip, he turned to greet the caterer, a personal friend of Margaret's.

With William holding the toddler sea-prince in his arms, the Murdoch's bid the caterer farewell, confident all was well with the preparations for their big party on Friday. The door closed, Julia leaned in to kiss him hello. "Welcome home, detective," she whispered, "Oh," she remembered their Halloween costumes, "Excuse my insolence, Welcome home, King Neptune. Our costumes are up on the bed."

His mouth wrinkled at a corner, attempting an apology, for he was meant to be home in time to help with the caterer. "I regret the lateness, my lovely Queen Salacia," came his sheepish, yet playful, response, accompanied by his winsome bow.

The boy's wriggling drew his parents' attention, and his father set him down on the ground. Claire-Marie in his sights, his tiny trident-fork and crown in her hands, he took off in a flash towards his regal accessories, his fishtail pumping along behind him.

Extending the three-pronged, wand-like, trident-fork out to the smallest Murdoch, Claire-Marie reminded of their game, "Master Triton, shall we return to our quest to save Blanco once again, from that dastardly sea-monster?" The nanny turned to her employers to explain, "He was desperate to stab something with his fork. The stuffed dinosaur seemed the best alternative."

"Perfect," Julia answered with a giggle. Her voice growing more intimate, she confided, "It seems your son inherited your tendency to have to save those you love from monsters," she nudged against his shoulder _. An unconscious barrier held traumatic memories at bay, of James Gillies, and being buried, and almost hung…_

" _Smug, cocky,"_ she thought of his sly smile.

"I do believe there is evidence that _**our**_ son received that tendency from his mother as well," he gave, his eyes so enchanting she could have fallen into them.

"Perhaps," she agreed, slipping her arm in his and giving it a squeeze.

William Jr., having made a ripping tour of the ground floor on his hunt for the dreaded sea-monster, now tore past them once more and headed back down the stairs on his rescue mission.

William wrinkled his brow and asked, "Won't he be cold in that, when we go out Trick-or-Treating?" And then, _suddenly, it dawned on him._ _ **His**_ _costume_ – _King Neptune, King of the Sea… it_ _ **would be similar**_ , and an odd chill seeped in, and he imagined the fishtail hugging tight around his legs, and all that cold air touching so much of his uncovered skin up above it, sending an icy shudder through him. Like a bullet, he rushed up the stairs.

Julia, mentally her brain catching up with him almost as quickly as her feet were, was mere froth in his wake.

Their bedroom door was opened and William barreled around the corner to halt before the costume-adorned bed, his eyes glued down to the King Neptune and Queen Salacia costumes laid out waiting. _Two dazzling fishtails, a pair of gilded-trident forks… two jeweled crowns…_

Julia barely avoided colliding into his abrupt stop.

"Where's the rest?" his question out, as much pleading as demanding. "Where's the other half of them?!"

The hum inside her head outward against the threatening blackening at the edges of her brain, _she had anticipated that he wouldn't like it, but he seemed more upset than she had expected._

His arms opened slightly, questioning her as he sarcastically quipped, "I can see the headlines now, _**Second Murdoch Body Farm even More Outrageous than the First**_ …"

She laughed.

"It's not funny, Julia," any inkling of humor gone, his eyes held to hers, accusing.

Julia's chin moved out and up, into its defiant jut, becoming proud, strong, as her eyes narrowed and her lips and jaw tightened.

Seeing it, William's heart pounded in his chest, for he could tell that she was gearing-up for a fight. He had less than a second to decide, _would he engage or would he backpedal?_ There was a sickly spreading of queasiness in his stomach, driving him, out of habit, to dive head first for default, his fallback – reason.

 _His exhale first, before his words, hinted to her that he was trying to calm himself down_.

"Julia," his eyes asked for understanding, but also pled for her to give in, to accept and to admit as well, "Sometimes you… There's a part of you that seeks… well… that seeks out public displays, scandal… and that wants to shock others… that tries to get us to… make love…" William's hands turned upward, gesturing towards the expanse of the public realm, "out there somewhere… where we could get caught… _**on purpose**_!" his tone one of disbelief, tainted ever so slightly with his frustration.

 _ **Uh-oh…**_ Her hands went to her hips…

"You started it!" she barked. "Inviting me to dinner, out in a public park, on a picnic blanket!" she raised.

 _ **Oh my**_ … William's chest puffed out, and then he leaned in…

"That was different! I was… The absinthe…" he retorted.

 _ **Oh**_ , how her eyes honed and pierced and stabbed, as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and leaned back to better take in the results as she prepared for her winning shot…

"And whose brilliant idea was that?!" she jabbed.

Their gaze clenched, both aware in the other, and in themselves, of their heaving chests, their drumming hearts, caused by the ringing urgency, for there was a challenge between them. The rumbling quivered, as if the earth itself quaked beneath their feet, such danger about, a rift threatening to crack apart on the precious little ground between them.

But then – with the subtlest hitch of breath, there was a bend, the locked rigidness between them creaking and swaying with the relief of it, like the trees do in the wind. It was her, it was Julia, who gave first.

Weakening, his body reacted to the change in her, draining his blood, tingling his flesh as her expression softened and warmed, tugging at him in the way only she, in all the world, could tug, and his heartstrings, his… more primitive urges, suddenly, uncontrollably, became taut…

"William," _steamy, the way her breath flooded out of her with his name, and the chord of her voice dropped down two octaves, and she inched ever so slightly closer._ "You know under all that buttoned-down outrage" and her fingers were on his tie, _all over his tie, pulling and nudging, and her breath was hot on him, dizzying him, souping his brain._ So quickly, the tie loosened, undone, and his top button gone, the sexual pressure of it forcing him to swallow against his will. "There's a part of you that fell madly in love with me _**precisely because**_ of that very part of me. And I think…" next button gone, her fingers immediately encountering, taking, demanding his vest buttons, "it is the tension…" she said as her hands traveled down lower, _getting so close, so very, very close._ _Oh, my God_ , another shirt button popped opened, the coolness of the air licking and mingled with the luscious sensations of her fingers directly encountering his flesh. Julia's voice in his ear continued torturing, "the immense, hard pressure between the balancing of those two opposing parts of you, battling on inside of you, that tension thrills me to the bone…" the next shirt button, now so low she was able to slip her hand inside to ravage his stomach, _such a surge jolting like a beeline to his groin_ , "and I think it thrills you, too..." her fingers molded up his chest, "husband, to be such a King, to be _**my**_ King, of the deep."

The tension, so quickly, tilted towards unbearable inside of him, wavering between opposing forces within.

She shook her head slowly, a fuzzy, loose curl tickling against his cheek, and her smoky voice whispered in his ear, "Don't deny it." And then she stepped back, the shifting of her distance sending a riptide through him.

 _So badly, he wanted to give her this – this latest dabble of hers in outrageousness. The forces on the left and those on the right were so evenly matched inside of him that the side to side movement between the two burdensome weights became undetectable, a microscopic teetering back-and-forth of the seesaw, the perfect balance serving only to raise the pressure around the center fulcrum rumbling and rising out of his core towards eruption. Trembling, buckling, his head throbbing – his skin suddenly so cold it burned_ … and his eyes pleaded with her so. _A high-pitched hissing sound inside his head drew his attention. Froze him, the steam screeching as it escaped, its secretive whisper hinting the way out, "Just tell her… Let it out – tell her the truth."_

His exhale foretold that he had yielded before his words did, "I won't," he bent closer with the disclosure, "I won't deny it."

She found it telling that he did not give his customary wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth admitting it face with his confession, merely swallowing instead, the crushing pressure lessened, but still heavy, still echoing in his ears.

William's eyes returned to the costumes laid out on the bed. True, he was unable to deny that he felt a passion he had never imagined possible when roused by this woman's wild side, yet he still he found he balked at the mere thought of feeling other people looking at them wearing little more than fishtails.

Julia stood next to him, less re-examining the costumes than she was re-examining William, sensing her husband's struggle was still raging on beside her. She sighed, unfortunately too late to stifle it completely, she merely cut the disappointing sound short. She reminded herself that she knew who she had married, and _Detective William Henry Murdoch was a stiff, stuffy, upstanding man_ … she almost giggled to herself as her brain interjected, " _with potential."_

"Let's at least put them on William," she bargained. Gratefully with that, his breathing settled. As Julia began undressing, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that her rather straight-laced husband was already in a state of being only partially dressed, the gorgeous man's chest duly exposed. The finding stimulating a delightful tweak in her womb and also invoked an ounce of pride, a guilty pleasure, in her for having been the one to make him so undone.

It was not long before he found himself standing before the mirror of her dressing vanity, Julia observing from behind. William braved a look at himself donning his costume. Unavoidable, the hunky bareness of the reflection that bounced back.

" _Mmm_ ," Julia's head purred her opinion. She cleared her throat, feeling his eyes, _brown, gorgeous, those eyes,_ lift to hers in the looking-glass. "You…" she needed to clear her throat once more, "You look fantastic, William. Believe me…" she stepped closer, boldly rubbing her lusty, big blue eyes all over his manly contours, "there's nothing to be ashamed of – quite the opposite."

William's focus returned to examine further his own physique in the mirror. He answered her, "I'm not ashamed of…" Without warning, out of nowhere, a feeling of exasperation took him, causing him to lift his arms to the sky, presenting the blatant fact of his half-dressed state more emphatically, "It's going out in public… _**like this**_ _. Actually -_ _ **choosing**_ to do so."

His eyes met hers again, in the glass.

 _Odd, the way the feeling of their shared glance was so familiar to him_ , with it an unspoken request from her to keep his eyes firmly to hers, to not let himself look down, and at the same time her face revealed her secret wish that he _would_ do exactly that, and that he would be utterly undone by what he would see when he did so. Before his mind could chase down the association stirring the déjà vu, he made his choice. William's long-lashed, dark eyes wholeheartedly gave into perusing all over her sultry body in the mirror. _Breathtaking, lust-struck and love-struck, and so soaringly dizzy… That is, before the wave passed. And his awareness of the outer world re-emerged around them. And then William could better imagine it, how she would appear to the eyes of others, particularly_ _ **male**_ _others, in her state._

"You can see your…" his eyes clung down on her bosoms and his words halted. " _Pendrick should have gotten her bigger clamshells…"_ his logical brain tried to lighten, registering its complaint. _The small size of the pair of curvy, finger-edged clamshells, plastered down into her moldable, creamy, groin-screaming, bosoms, only served to exaggerate the urge to touch them, to have them in your hands, to feel the supple squishing and bulging filling in between your fingers, and all this longing achingly pulsed his groin to full-fledged alert…_ Yet, when his eyes came back to hers, there was an element of the hurt that he was contending with that showed through, from his having seen her desirable nakedness exposed so palpably.

 _And that's when Julia remembered the night of the voluptuous black dress, the night they had argued about her wearing_ _ **that dress**_ _to a party after she had put it on. Him thinking he possessed her, him acting like he could control her, like he could make her wear something else instead. It had made her furious at the time. And he had tried in the midst of that fight, with such desperation, to tell her what he felt when he pictured other men looking at her in that shapely black dress, and worse, that he was certain that those same other men would feel inside of themselves upon the sight, the same feelings that he felt when he looked at her in that dress. And with this memory she undeniably knew it, the re-discovery landing, now, with a thump in her chest, she grasped that William had likely just run the gamut of imagining much the same thing with this similarly revealing Queen Salacia costume. And with that, with having found empathy with William's troubled state, she felt the sting of it. There was no doubt about it, she felt regret._

"I'm sorry, William," she said with a sigh, stepping up close from behind him.

He smiled instantly when she gave him his own wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth admitting it look in the mirror.

Her bare arms slipped around his waist and she tenderly leaned down to kiss his chiseled, muscly shoulder. Inside her there was a pang, _so delicious the taste of this man, the scent of him wafting in, he was so scrumptiously strapping and strong._ And she knew plainly that this magnificent feeling of arousal ignited by the thought of their wearing these salaciously alluring costumes out in public was the cost of accepting that she had been pushing him too hard. She had been asking too much to expect a man such as William to accept this degree of outrageousness. With a deep sigh she moved, stepping around to his side to stand next to him before the mirror. Their eyes still entwined, she suggested, "You can wear an undershirt. Perhaps there's a way to dye it to match the blue color of the tail – or even better," her eyes sparkled with the idea, "your blue pajama top." She fought a frown, adding, "I'll wear a camisole. I have one that is beige… From afar, with a quick glance, it may appear to be skin. I can put the clamshells over it."

He turned to face her and she lifted her arms up around his neck.

"You do look beautiful," he said.

"We've always make a good couple," she replied. Her lips tipped in so very close to his ear, creating the mirage of contact, "At least we can enjoy these for now, just the two of us…"

"My queen," his voice grew lusty and he glanced over at their bed. "Shall we pump up some waves in the ocean?"

 _Wild, passionate images played in their minds, predicting the future. Crowns and trident-forks scattered to the winds as the seas picked up, and the bed, and the pillows, and the blankets, rippled and roared. Thunderous crashes as the two bodies of the king and the queen vied for dominance, flipping and flopping, throwing and pulling, and pressing, and squeezing, and demanding, and begging, and thrusting…_

 _BUT… There were time issues. Eloise would surely have dinner ready._

"Perhaps we don't have time," William corrected.

They decided, accepting reality, to complete putting on the costumes and to take photographs, as this would be the last time they would wear them, at least in the spirit that these particular costumes were intended. Julia laced sparkly green strips of 'seaweed' into her hair as William adhered the small beard to his chin. Then they put on their crowns, and posed together, checking the results in the mirror. Their ensembles complete, his tail off to the right, hers to the left, lush seaweed, so beautiful, twisted and curled into the locks of her golden hair, his distinguished black goatee beard on his chin, regal crowns atop, lustrous trident-forks, and with it all their eyes seemed to dance as they soaked the magic before them in.

William had a memory flash, sparked upon noticing in the reflection the sensual way the golden, long curls of her hair parted around those two perfectly bulging orbs of her bosoms, covered just barely with those two teeny, tiny clamshells. There were flickers, each one stealing away a bit more of his ability to breathe, his mind finally replaying the full memory, probably for the billionth time. " _Perhaps it was her smaller trident-fork, reminding of a shovel?"_ his rational brain tried to understand the connection. He felt the roll through him, breath stolen, knees wobbling. _She was stunning. He had always suspected so, but that first time… Who was he fooling,_ _ **every time**_ _, he was wholeheartedly captured reveling in her beauty, her unfathomable, devastating beauty._

Breaking the spell, William changed his point of focus to his own reflection once more. As the couple's brown eyes and blue eyes fluttered over the image in front of them, they evaluated, at first wholly caught by the magnificence. Dangerous however, flying this close to grandiosity, and their instincts drove them each to correct their distasteful arrogance by finding faults. Those same twinkling eyes switched to critical ones as they sought out scars, wrinkles, unsightly sags in the flesh.

Julia spoke, telling her thoughts had traveled a similar path to his, "Life takes its toll," she said, "But still, it seems it doesn't wholly steal away the beauty, hmm?"

His deep breath, and she sensed his discomfort. She would help. "You make a good king – fitting for the crown."

Then he asked her, noting the accessory was missing, "What did they make your purse out of… a conch shell?" he suggested.

"William," an air of authority in her tone for his having made such an obvious mistake, "I won't need a purse… William," she paused, ducking down her chin down and looking up at him before inviting him to look around at their surroundings, "The party's in our own home."

 _Wham, that familiar out-of-body experience hit him like a brick_ , his mind lightening-off down the trail rapidly unfolding inside of him, catapulting him along against his will to show him what he already knew. It felt like a time-warp, going so fast, yet so slow, knowing words would never be able to get there in time. He pictured, remembered, it exactly as it had happened, _that strutting Neil Catfrey seated in the Interview Room, tossing William a crumb, a hint, saying cryptically, "In order for you to be successful when you pursue this, at least one of you must come out of the picture."_ Staggery and mumbly, still, William tried, muttering to her, "Take one of 'U' out of 'pursue'… Of course! Julia, you are brilliant! Of course!"

His eyes twinkled and sparkled and pulled at her so, electrical zings of love and lust and curiosity and wonder shooting bolts between them, and then… then she remembered what she had been saying before he went wherever it was William goes in his big brain – she had been telling him about her _not_ needing a purse at their own party. _And with a wallop, it hit her_ , as she compared that to his misty comment about taking a 'U' out of 'pursue,' yielding a whole different word all together, like a sort of word puzzle! And she saw that William was detecting that she had grasped it, and now it would be a race between them, for she so wanted to say it aloud before he did.

William forced himself to hold back at the last second, anticipating the reward of the burst of joint discovery.

"Purse! Purse! That's what the clue is!" Julia nearly hopped up and down with her excitement, "Taking a 'U' out of the word pursue makes the word 'purse' William! The robber must have put something in the women's purses!"

He swept her into his arms and planted an enthusiastic kiss on her lips. "I knew there was a reason I married you!" he declared.

His kiss of joy still tingled on her lips as she watched him flinging the various parts of his King Neptune costume all over the room, the back of her brain disappointed, for it seemed they would not be capturing their sexy-looking Halloween costumes in a photograph after all. Julia hurried to help him, retrieving his shirt from earlier, his tie, his vest, like a high-speed rewind, almost immediately downstairs, him tapping his homburg onto his head and asking her to call the Inspector and George and to tell them to meet him at the Banner's house, and then blurring out the door.

)

About an hour later the doorbell rang unexpectedly. Julia recognized the man standing there immediately, but not the shapely woman at his side. "Inspector Guillaume!" she greeted with surprise, "This is quite far from Paris. You must be in Toronto to guard the Pink Panther Diamond."

"Dr. Ogden, oui. It is that exactly. Although it has been many years, you… you still impress me. Magnifique, that a doctor can be so beautiful," he charmed instantly, taking her hand up to his lips, pausing, eyeing her up through his lashes, _lashes that he seemed wholly unaware would never compete with William's_. "This is my wife, Angelique," he turned to tuck his hand behind the small of the blond woman's back.

"A doctor, so extraordinaire," Angelique greeted. Her eyes flirted, fluttering a glance, then darting away only to return for a slightly deeper connection. "Your monster… I suppose for your Halloween… uh, customs… It is very frightening, non?" she patted her chest, as she dared to look back where the monster had popped-up from behind the bushes next to the porch to startle them.

Inspector Guillaume complimented his friend, Monsieur Murdoch, "I told you, Angelique, that the detective was an inventor… However…" then an impudent smile grew on his face as he caught Julia's eye, "What I did _not_ know was that he would use his talents for something with no purpose other than for fun. Your husband is très sérieux, non? I was of the belief that he lacked such… playful inclinations."

"Marcel," his wife took exception, "How impolite of you."

 _Odd_ , Julia noticed, _the way woman's giggle afterwards revealed that she found her husband's brashness enticing_.

Julia found herself lured into the teasing of poor, absent, William, agreeing with the sentiment behind the French Inspector's comment. "I must admit," Julia conceded, "my husband can be a bit… stuffy."

"You see, Angelique, even the woman who married him knows… Il est évident. You will see for yourself soon enough," he added.

Suddenly both of them were staring expectedly at Julia. A subtle cloud of confusion filled the air.

Marcel Guillaume broke the uncomfortable pause with a chuckle. "I suppose the good detective forgot to mention…" he nodded, receiving Julia's 'a-ha' expression, "It seems your husband invited us over for after dinner drinks without informing his beautiful wife."

"Oh my," Angelique gasped. "He is here, oui?

Julia shook her head, "No. He hurried out…" Her glance jumped to meet Inspector Guillaume's eye, _a fellow policeman, he would understand,_ she shrugged knowingly to him explaining, "He discovered a clue… on his latest case."

Angelique complained, "I wanted, beaucoup, beaucoup, to meet this handsome Canadian detective again. We met so briefly that morning at the hotel…"

Unable **not** to wonder, Julia repeated the much too sexy-looking woman's last words in her head, "… _at the hotel! William… met her at a hotel!?"_

Angelique, apparently completely unaware that she had set off concern in her potential hostess, continued on with her rambling wishing, "…this man, this Monsieur Murdoch. Il fascine Marcel." The woman pouted, her plush lips drawing the eye.

Diverting from an uncomfortable topic for him, Marcel proudly held up a bottle. "Shall we start without him then, ladies?" he invited cheerfully.

Julia recognized the extravagant cognac, her eyes widening with excited glee, "Jacquiot XO! How splendid," she declared. "William won't mind… I'm afraid he does not indulge," she said, realizing at the end of her statement that William's teetotaling would be seen as further fodder for his being a boring and stuffy man – that is, certainly in comparison the _these_ two.

Already through the door, coat hung on William's foyer peg, Marcel headed for the living room, trumpeting, "Très bon, all the more for us!"

) (

So… While William dashed over to investigate the purses of both Madame Banner as well as Madame Hubbard, the Guillaume's and his lovely doctor-wife shared stories, much of them about William, over glass after glass after glass of delicious, and quite potent, French cognac. Wanting not to abandon their company, particularly in light of the fact that William had already erred in forgetting that they were even coming at all, Julia asked Claire-Marie to stay later than usual and to prepare William Jr. for bed. Now, the nanny long gone, the toddler had nestled into his Mommy's lap and drifted off to sleep, waiting for his father to get home. None of the adults realized how quickly the time had passed as the conversation was lively and the cognac was wonderful. Feeling delightfully tipsy, the conversation drifted into somewhat dangerous territory.

The current laughter erupted, Julia working so hard to control her own share of it to blurt out the rest of her story, her face bright pink with the laughing – and the cognac – she told the French couple, "You should have seen how flustered William looked, his perfect tie and his stylish hat all askew, even his shirt buttons undone, when the cabbie opened the carriage door and caught us.

Touching her hand, _probably for the hundredth time that night_ , to Julia's knee, Angelique leaned forward and said, "I wonder how it could be, such a daring, risqué woman as you are, Julia, how do you find happiness with a man so… how shall I say…"

Marcel drunkenly stabbed his index finger proudly in the air, stealing their attention, for he had the perfect word. Shaking the finger about for dramatic effect, shoving his urge to laugh aside, "Prudish…" he spilled it out, then collapsed into hearty laughter once again.

"That is it exactly!" Angelique declared, sliding over on the sofa to sit in her husband's lap. She showered him with kisses. "You are so brilliant," she adored, "Mon homme sexy." Her attentions to her husband escalated, her mouth traveling down the man's neck, her fingers invading the knot of his tie. "Perhaps we can make you look the same way, non?" she teased.

Watching on, her womb twitching, despite her telling herself not to do so, as she watched the abundantly _French_ couple becoming more passionate right in front of her, Julia became conscious of a feeling of a regret. The acknowledgement of it made her take a deep breath. " _We're not being wholly fair to William,"_ she scolded herself inside her head. A part of her gave herself the admitting-it face as she argued back at herself, thinking, " _Well, 'prudish' is not completely untrue…"_ Still, she felt the need to explain, to at least try to correct their mistaken image of William, despite the fact that earlier she had had to make it starkly clear to them that William would want no part in their more ' _FRENCH_ ' lifestyles.

"I must say, in William's defense," she started her attempt to rectify their limited point of view of William. Her tone was sufficiently serious that it changed the mood, and the couple ceased their foreplay and their giggling, and settled to focus on her. "I think I have let you get the wrong idea about William. William is one of the most open-minded, modern men I've ever known… It's just well, William has much more to him than one sees at first. It's not as much that there is a different side to him as it is that there are deeper and deeper layers to him, and they're underneath his more modest, rigid surface… William's sort of like a crab, in a way…" she waxed philosophical, probably because of the cognac, "Not to say he's 'crabby.' No, that is not what I mean. I mean, he's all soft and tender inside, like the meaty crab inside its hard shell," she meandered towards making her point.

"Well," Angelique worked to accept this novel perspective of the man she was yet to truly meet, "It must be so, for a woman as lovely as you are to be so in lov…"

! ! !

Alarming them abruptly, the strangest noise pierced the air – from outside… followed instantly by that horridly familiar mechanized evil laughter _! It was William's pop-up monster_ , everyone figured it out instantly, feeling a grateful sense of relief sinking in with the remembering of the booby-trap-like device planted outside the Murdoch front porch.

"Little One," Julia nudged her baby son in her lap, "Daddy's home." Tenderly, tenderly, tenderly she kissed and caressed the sleepiness out of her little boy, and then she lifted him off her lap and dangled him, waiting for him to firmly place his adorable footsie-pajama-covered feet on the floor. Letting go of him, from behind, she encouraged the toddler to hurry to go greet his Daddy at the door.

The parade of adults followed along in tow.

Immediately, William had picked up his two-year old son. His hug was softer, less rambunctious, than usual, for his fatherly instincts had detected the baby's sleepiness. "You waited up for me, hmm Little Man?" he gushed.

"Yes Daddy," William Jr. answered him proudly, turning to look at the others coming up behind while receiving his Daddy's adoring kiss on his cheek.

Out of the corner of his eye, William noticed the three figures… " _Not just Julia. There are others,"_ his mind alerted.And his brain raced to provide the memory of his having had invited the French Inspector and his wife over to their house tonight, bringing it up to the forefront for him, all happening before he had even fully taken in the sight of who it was exactly that was in their company. _He had completely forgotten!_

"Inspector Guillaume… Madame Guillaume! Please forgive me," he worried, resting William Jr. over onto his hip to offer the Inspector a handshake.

"Marcel," Inspector Guillaume corrected, preferring the less formal address.

The Inspector's wife offered him her hand, "And Angelique, s'il vous plait… William," she requested, using William's first name, subtly asking his permission.

" _Flirtatious, this one,"_ William observed.

Unexpectedly, almost intrusively, an old disconcerting memory flashed inside of William's head, from nearly a decade ago when William had met the French Inspector in his hotel room to tell him what they had found out about their Jane Doe, and a beautiful young woman had emerged from the bedroom and kissed Guillaume, long and deep, on the lips, and then asked him if she would see him that night…And then, just a few minutes later, _**another woman, a different woman**_ – Angelique – the French Inspector's wife, it had turned out, came out of that very _**SAME**_ bedroom! And William had known then that Inspector Guillaume had had sex with _**both**_ of these attractive women _**together**_! It was astounding! And the man had felt no shame about it, on the contrary, Guillaume had behaved as if such behavior was commonplace, and that it was actually William who was abnormal for not partaking in such behavior himself.

 _Oh, it tickled Guillaume so_ , the detective's expression, for he knew _exactly_ what the poor buttoned-down man was remembering, and he intended to push this man's ever-so-proper buttons mercilessly. After all, Monsieur Murdoch had an abundance of said buttons to push.

"Monsieur Murdoch," he spoke in a rush, "William…" he corrected himself, "It seems you interrupt me once again while I am entertaining two of the most beautiful women. Even more delightful, that one of them is your wife, non?"

 _Julia noticed, Guillaume noticed… William Henry Murdoch had blushed._

Julia's telling Mona-Lisa-smile on her lips, she would rescue her husband, "James Pendrick called for you. He said to tell you that you were right, the item suspected might be missing is missing."

 _William's heartrate shot up even higher with the news. And he felt them all still examining him, all those eyes. And he felt a panic brewing in his gut, for he had been troubled about telling Julia about Sally Pendrick, correction – Sally Hubbard, and even worse, telling Julia about what Catfrey had said about the painting of the titillating woman in the nude. And he remembered that Julia was the only one who had been able to see that obscure painting for what it truly was all those years ago. And he was certain she could see right into him right now. And it was getting so hot in here…_

 _He hated it_ , but still, William had no choice. The tension had made his throat so dry it would crack if he did not swallow before he spoke. _Gulp_ , he yielded to the requirement, and then said, "That is unfortunate," his brain explaining why it was so, but only to himself, _for it indicated that there was definitely a connection between Catfrey and Sally both being here in Toronto at the same time, and it was most likely a sinister connection at that._

Adding to William's stress, the Guillaume's had clearly been told about his and Julia's sexually-revealing Halloween costumes, and worse, the couple intended to torture him with their relentless requests for him to agree for himself and Julia to change into the half-naked garbs for them to see.

Angelique brought the topic up by way of congratulating William about making such a, "magnifique," monster to frighten the Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween, thus giving an opening for her husband to make the direct suggestion.

"Monsieur Murdoch… William, you have a Halloween costume, with Julia, yes… Angelique and I would very much like to see them," his handsome blue eyes glistened with the intended poke.

William's dark eyes charged to meet Julia's, scolding with a raising of an eyebrow.

 _There was a slowness, an oddly familiar blurriness to her movements, and a dimly detectable slurring,_ as Julia responded to her husband's unspoken reprimand. "I don't see the harm, William. It's just the four of us. Maybe, after the baby's tucked in?" mischievously, she joined the dastardly rally against him.

And that's how long it took William to notice, the awareness surging his uneasy stomach even further towards alarm, at least at first. " _They were all drunk!"_

"Julia," he mixed pleading with annoyance…

Angelique interrupted them, stepping close to William and stoking William Jr.'s black curls. "William Jr. showed us his fish-man costume earlier…"

"Triton," William Jr. corrected her.

"Oui, oui," she declared delightedly, "Triton."

Putting the little boy down, William straightened up and frowned at her. He was feeling more in control with the recognition that the three of them were intoxicated, the alcohol being the best explanation for their whimsical, less than responsible, attitudes.

"That will have to suffice, I'm afraid," he said firmly. The corner of his mouth curled upward after his statement, the merest attempt at an apology.

And with that, William received Angelique's pout.

William Jr. took off for the kitchen. "Hot chocklit! Hot Chocklit!" the little child made his hopes known.

Julia gestured, suggesting they all follow him.

Just before they struck off for the kitchen, Marcel watched William watch his son run off and then winked at William and leaned over to tease, "I see you made babies as I suggested…"

A cat-ate-the-canary grin on her face, Angelique halted them all right there. "Oh, I see Marcel at one point has graced you with his usual line about the **wife** and the **mistress** ," she divulged with guilty pleasure.

Julia's curiosity was ever so piqued, but, _so devilishly_ , her big, blue, beautiful eyes stayed pinned directly on her, already squirming, husband when she asked the Frenchwoman, "And what, pray tell, is your husband's line about the wife and the mistress?"

 _My goodness, it was getting so very hot in here…_

Angelique's manner imitated her husband's perfectly, "You make **babies** with your wife," then, using Marcel's hand gestures to a T, and the Frenchman's overstated widening of his eyes, she continued, "But you make _**LOVE**_ to your mistress." Angelique fell into a fit of laughter afterwards.

And Julia's glee lit up her face, for she had watched as William had turned crimson, and then he had uncomfortably tugged at his collar, and then he had blown out all that built-up pressure through his pursed lips, and all the while he had been brave enough to look her wholeheartedly in the eye. _So lovely_. "Oh, I see," she joined in the giggling.

William sensed an opening and cleared his throat, bidding they all take notice. _My God, the man could be winsome_ , and he puffed-out his chest, knowing he would charm them all with what he was about to say. He began walking them all forward towards the kitchen together again and said, as he tucked his arm into Julia's, "What you could not have known when you told me that all those years ago, Marcel, was that, for me, this remarkable woman would be both."

 _William's gorgeous eyes dashed that shy, sideways glance at Julia that always gave her butterflies. Brief yes, but he had seen it… Her face was aglow, wide, surprised… It reminded him of the expression she had had back when she had stood in the bullpen looking on as he demonstrated his truthilizer invention to the men, and the blue liquid had shot up so dramatically in the coiled glass tube right after Higgins had been cocky enough to publicly ask him if he was in love._

"Oh-ho!" Marcel exclaimed with a dirty chuckle, impressed by William's bold statement about his intimate relations with his wife.

"It is true then, what Julia has told us," Angelique gasped.

 _And William's brain rushed a little wondering what it was Julia had said to them._

Angelique never stopped, now rewarding, "Touché, William…" The Frenchwoman looked to Julia, for she wanted her to know that she, too, felt such a love with Marcel, saying, "That is what Marcel tells of me." _There was an undertow though, a solemnness in the woman's tone that Julia detected. She had seen it in Angelique earlier as well, when she had declined the couple's rather spicy and immodest proposal, indirectly avoiding giving them an answer, describing hers and William's passions instead, as a means of explanation. She wondered if perhaps Angelique was more the mistress than the wife. She wasn't sure, but there was something missing, a longing that had been awoken anew._

"Then we are both fortunate men," William replied, such a big smile on his face, "very fortunate men indeed."

"Oui, c'est vrai," Marcel exclaimed.

"Shall we?" William gestured them forward the last few steps into the kitchen, by now William Jr. tugging at his mother's skirts.

Julia remembered that William had not yet had any dinner, and so the Murdoch's and their guests sat around the kitchen table enjoying a second dinner, and some hot chocolate, sobering up the more drunken members of the group, while they discussed all myriad of things, but mostly the police matters at hand. William caught everybody up on the security being instated by the Constabulary to guard the Pink Panther Diamond during Friday night's Howell-oween Bash. And he filled them in on much of the details about the home-invasion Jewel Robbery case as well.

William decided that it would be best to bring up Sally while Inspector Guillaume and his wife were there. The French Inspector knew Sally, she had recently married a wealthy French baron over in Paris. And importantly, Julia would probably be less likely to probe into William's discomforts with some of his feelings for the other woman if others were present. He told them all that he had considered Sally Hubbard, now Sally Charron, as a potential victim of the jewel robber because she tended to don such luxurious jewels, but he had decided to rule her out because the robber uses home-invasion to commit his crimes and the security at the Queen's Hotel where Sally was staying would likely deter the robber, or robbers, for it was still unclear as to whether or not he worked alone. He had not, however, ruled Sally out as a potential thief of the Pink Panther Diamond, largely because he was aware that she had ties to his main suspect, Neil Catfrey. Further, Sally was well-connected to the owner of the priceless diamond, making it relatively easy for her to get close to it.

All eyes were glued to William as he disclosed what he had discovered from Catfrey's clue about the purses. It turns out that both Mrs. Banner's and Mrs. Hubbard's purses which they had taken with them to the events on the night's they were robbed each still had these small devices adhered deep down inside the very bottom of them. William pulled out the two devices from inside his vest pocket to show them. Also in his pocket was the picture he had used when interviewing people in his efforts to locate Neil Catfrey. Having had already shown Inspector Guillaume the picture, and knowing that Julia had seen more than enough of Mr. Catfrey on the night she danced with the man, _she engaged in flirtation with the man,_ he laid the picture down on the table thinking it was insignificant. He opened his palm wide to display the devices they had found, explaining that he had suspected they were a form of listening device. Handing one of the small devices off to Julia and the other to Angelique, Angelique quickly passed hers on to her husband to examine. William added that he had gone to see a man he knew who had invented a wireless transmission device – an 'electrolytic detector.'

While William elaborated on the first time he had worked with Professor Fessenden a decade ago. He grew so excited with the memories and with the technology that his eyes twinkled and his speech grew hurried. His enthusiasm was contagious…

That is, it was to Julia and Marcel. Angelique, however, held back a sigh of boredom. Her eyes drifted looking for anything of interest.

"We used the listening device to record a politician admitting to taking a bribe," William put his fork down on his plate, indicating his story would be a long one. "The device was huge back then – so big we had to hide it in a suitcase, and in order to make it work, the suitcase had to have this gigantic antenna sticking up out of it…"

Angelique spotted the picture William had put down on the table and reached over to pick it up. _The man was extremely good-looking,_ she noticed first. But then it sparked – _she had seen this man_! Her excitement bubbled up, and for the briefest of seconds she told herself _not_ to interrupt the detective, but it was too late. She had shaken the photograph about vigorously with her discovery. And she wasn't sure, but she might have even gasped. Either way, Monsieur Murdoch had stopped talking and all of them were staring at her.

"Oh," she declared, now the center of attention, "But I recognize him," she offered. She turned the photograph for Julia to see and said, "He is memorable, non, you must admit." Her eyes lured Julia to look, unbeknownst to Angelique that Julia had seen the man before, that THIS was the man who recently had beguiled her at a dance and caused them so much suffering. The Frenchwoman coaxed her to notice the man's handsomeness, then she gave her husband a wide-eyed look. "This man is most attractive," she concluded, bringing the picture back to look at it admiringly once more.

At the same time, Marcel and William both rushed to ask her where and when she had seen the man in the picture – where she had seen this Neil Catfrey. But before they each had a chance to finish their simultaneous questions, Angelique answered, "I saw him today at the zoo, while you were all so busy with your questions and your checking things for fingermarks and any other signs of tampering with the big important diamond… And that beautiful young woman veterinarian made such a scene, so upset about the poor lioness who must be painted pink to look as if she is a pink panther. It is so ridiculous…"

Unfortunately for William's patience, Julia joined in with the protesting about the insignificant detail – the dyeing of the unfortunate lion and the subsequent lividness of the shapely woman vet. "All because of the name of the diamond! That is absurd, to say the least," she nodded excitedly to Angelique.

"It is why they chose this location – the zoo, for the panther," Angelique reminded.

An inner tug, _not identified to herself yet as jealousy_ , drove Julia to learn more about this intriguing woman. "So, this woman veterinarian… she failed in stopping the silliness?"

"Oui, her boss – a toff, Alderman Lamb, he demanded it be done despite the young woman's obvious prowess on matters of caring for the zoo animals. She felt it would be much too dangerous, that she would have to tranquilize the poor lioness," Angelique jumped at the chance to elaborate, "This Alderman, he treated the doctor like a tiny child, he tell to her that she was making the molehill into a mountain…"

As the two women spoke about the 'beautiful young woman veterinarian,' William felt an unsteadiness stirring inside. _He HAD noticed this woman. She was incredibly attractive. Young, bright eyed, spicy, and strong. He had had a reaction to her, one that had been strong enough for him to be aware of it, for him to shove at it, to push it down, to think of Julia, for the woman reminded him of Julia, and such worry had ensued in his remembering about how terribly upset Julia had become that time not so long ago when he had found himself, when she had noticed him from across the restaurant table, fantasizing about the waitress…_

There, around their kitchen table, Julia was wholly enthralled, _the back of her mind squinting through Angelique's words to discern if her first instinct towards jealousy was founded_. "The saying about the molehill is that she was 'making a mountain OUT OF a molehill," Julia corrected.

"Oui, yes. That is right," she agreed. Talkative, this Angelique, and now she had some gossip – and Julia's ear. "Oui Julia. Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Mole. Perhaps her name makes people think of the **mole** hill, non?" she brightened with her creative pun, "A woman doctor… like you, but for the animals, so not as good. But the men will turn heads for this one…"

As much to get away from a topic that William wanted to avoid as it was to get back to the case, William interrupted, "Ladies, please. My suspicions are raised even more now to find out that Catfrey was at the zoo today. He must be preparing to steal the diamond…"

Julia asked, finding as she did so that she not only had some qualms about her husband and this new, beautiful veterinarian, but she also felt a smoldering of unpleasant suspicions concerning William and the woman she herself was about to bring up – Sally Pendrick, "Did you say Sally Pendrick, err, uh, Sally Charron was it… Did you say she was at the zoo today too?"

William gulped, for she gave him a look.

"Perhaps while this attractive woman doctor was steaming about?" Julia continued, her discerning eyes looking over at William from the rim of her cup of hot chocolate as she lifted it to her lips.

Marcel could not lean further forward over the Murdoch's kitchen table… _and William noticed, with a scowl, that the Frenchman had lit, once again, one of those foul, dreadful cigarettes – bad enough they had to occasionally put up with Meyers' cigars, now this too…_ Using one of his, now familiar, usual gestures, Marcel's cigarette-clasped fist rose high towards the center of the table, the cigarette replacing his index finger in insisting they take note of him. "Non, non," he said, shaking his head, his long hair lagging behind the motion, "I did not see her. You William?" He tapped some ashes from the cigarette into the ashtray Julia had retrieved for him.

William's irritation required a moment to quell, and so there was a pause. He swallowed away the awful cigarette-burning sting in his throat. "I saw neither Sally Hubbard nor Neil Catfrey. But with Sally's acquaintance with the diamond's owner, she could very well have been in the building set aside to seclude the diamond for sake-keeping until Friday night."

"C' est vrai," Marcel agreed. "And this Neil Catfrey, you suspect him in your robbery case as well, you said?" Another drag on the cigarette before ticking it into the ashtray once more.

William nodded, his appetite gone because of the smoke. He pushed his plate away.

Marcel went on, "He could have been there today to prepare for either crime then – stealing the Pink Panther Diamond OR robbing some poor toff of her jewels, yes?

"Yes," William's simple answer. Thinking about it he added, "Or both."

As to the robbery case, William went over much of the details that he had worked out thus far. He told them about what Neil Catfrey had said when he interviewed him, that Catfrey had said that he believed the robber would prefer to work alone – no partners. And Catfrey had known **how** the robber could accomplish the crime singlehandedly, and he had been the one to lead him to the very devices that were now the biggest clue in the case. "Finding these listening devices, exactly where his clue indicated they would be, suggests that not only was Catfrey right about the way the robberies were done," William argued, "but he is also now the prime suspect."

Julia wondered, _an upsurge of emotion flaring inside her gut with the thought because she did not want to be the one to defend Neil Catfrey to William again, especially not after all they had been through because of the man._ She overruled her hesitation and asked, "But William, don't you think that if he was the robber he would have avoided telling you such things?"

Annoyingly to William's state of mind, Marcel added, "The lovely doctor has a point." Even more annoyingly to William, Marcel winked at his wife.

Julia almost laughed out loud as she watched William reach up and rub his brow. Watching on, she knew exactly what William would do next, even before William himself did. He would sigh.

Frowning, William went back to what things they did know about the case, and yes, he sighed first. "Professor Fessenden said that the listening devices are only able to send a signal four or five blocks. And, because the robber, or one of the robbers if Neil Catfrey's theory is incorrect, arrived at the victim's homes only briefly before the victims did, Friday night's targeted couple would need to reside relatively near to the Riverdale Zoo. Now we know that he will likely plant a device similar to these…" William glanced at the two devices resting in the center of the table, "into some woman's purse that night. We will be watching for this to happen. He will also need a place to set up the equipment that receives the signals from the victim's purse, and he will need to listen in during the event to hear the wife saying goodnight, or whatever," William waved off the annoyance of explaining how the robber would use what he heard through the device to be certain of the departure time of the victims. He took a deep breath and continued his train of thought, "Once they are preparing to leave the party, the robber will have to rush from wherever he is listening to the victims through the device to the victims' home so that he can be waiting inside the front door when they enter. We've narrowed down the likely victims from the guest list – married women, wealthy, with an abundance of expensive jewels, living within a ten-block radius of the zoo… That is the maximum distance, if the robber is acting alone and he placed the signal-receiving equipment within five blocks of the event, and then only needed to travel a short distance to the target's home." William reached up and rubbed his brow again. _He worried that he would not be able to be at the zoo during the event, but it had been settled. He just had to accept it. Inspector Guillaume would be there, and Julia had made the best possible arrangements for someone to attend in his own place, and there would be a large number of constable on hand as well._

As if he were psychic, Marcel rubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and he said, "It is unfortunate that you will not be attending this Howell-oween Bash with us…" He winked at Angelique before he continued, "Then we would have had a chance to see the two of you in your magnificent Halloween costumes… since you deny us the pleasure tonight."

William simply gave the man an irritated smile.

Angelique would try one last time, her pouting preceding her request this time. "Please William," she pleaded, "Julia tells us they are for making of the films, non. These costumes must be marvelous, non. And they lack the tops… and I think you would look magnifique without the top on…"

"He does," Julia interjected. Her blue eyes looked to William and she nodded as she told it again, "He really, really does."

Angelique leaned close to William seated around the corner from her at the table, bringing her ruby, red lips provocatively near. She whispered, "I très, très, très desire to see you with your costume."

Avoidance at all costs, William dropped his focus down on their sleeping son in Julia's lap. "It's late," he signaled that his answer was still no.

Marcel pushed his chair back, yielding. "I suppose you are right," he agreed. "Angelique, mon Cherie, we should be going. Let them put the baby to bed, and do whatever it is that these Murdoch's do afterwards," he reached for Julia's free hand to kiss it in saying goodnight. Then slyly he added, "Malheureusement, it appears certain that they will not be doing it with us."

"Malheureusement," Angelique answered him, offering her hand to William for him to kiss.

The Guillaume's put on their coats and said another round of goodnights at the door.

Then, finally alone, suggested that William put William Jr. to bed while she cleaned up. It was not long until the house was locked up for the night safe and sound.

)

Quite intentionally, Julia left her satin slip on instead of changing into her nightgown. Feeling lustful, she had removed all her undergarments, leaving only her bare skin under the sleek satin fabric. Now, sitting at her vanity brushing out her hair, she waited for William to finish closing up the house, and she decisively let herself enjoy imagining what would happen when he came in. So quickly, she tumbled head over heels into the fantasies – _William stepping up behind her, his hands all over her, slipping and sliding so lusciously over her body through the satin. Her womb coiled and clenched as she imagined his breath, hot and surging and hungry, in her ear, his manliness pressing at her buttocks…_

His footsteps coming up the stairs drew her own eyes to meet herself in the mirror, _"truly beautiful in this lowlight,"_ she thought of the look of them. She felt… so aroused, and warm. And a part of her wondered if it was the cognac, and another part assured that she had sobered up sufficiently while they talked in the kitchen. She heard William pass their bedroom. " _Checking the baby,_ " she told herself, such tenderness in her chest, _she loved them both so._

William came in, closed the bedroom door behind himself. His suit jacket and vest in hand, he nodded to her, his eyes darkening as he took in the look of her. He put the vest and jacket in the closet, placed his badge in the top drawer of his dresser, and came over next to her. _Julia enjoyed so when he did this, such a lovely familiarity to it,_ he rested his buttocks to lean down against the top of her vanity while she sat in the chair working on her hair. _There would be intimacy to their talk._ At least, that was what she expected, but…

" _The case, of course, the case_ ," she frowned to herself, annoyed that she had expected otherwise from him, as William brought up the same old subject once more.

William slipped off his shoes as he said, "We got another lead from Professor Fessenden today…"

Julia looked at herself in the mirror once more, partially wondering if her disappointment could be seen on her face. After a quick sigh, she replied, "Oh?" accepting that the case would be what they discussed, she urged herself for patience.

Typical of William, an unsolved case like bone to a dog, he seemed wholly unaware of her more romantic hopes. He continued on, "After I showed him the listening devices from the purses, he told me that he had sold six such devices to a man about a month ago."

Being the perfect match for William Murdoch that Julia Ogden was, her mind began to engage. She asked herself, had almost had time to ask William the question too, but he went had proceeded too quickly, _"Could the man have been Neil Catfrey?"_

Answering her question, he said, "He did not recognize the photograph of Catfrey. But he did think the buyer was American. He had heard an accent. And he gave us a description – short, balding, spectacles… and a notably big nose. The name on the receipt was Peter Burke…"

Adoring it so, Julia smiled when he gave her his doubting face, all wrinkled up and gorgeous.

"But the address on the receipt panned out," he said, sounding more cheery. "A man at the corner newspaper stand near the building said he thought the description matched a man called Schnozzy. He said he knew the man to run a two-bit shell game in the park…" William recounted more of the clues. Tellingly, William rubbed his forehead with his stress before he added, "But he hadn't been around for about a month. Maybe this Schnozzy purchased the listening devices for the robber and then moved on…"

 _That lovely, unsure face-wrinkle of his again_ , Julia noted.

"I'll have George work on it tomorrow," William sounded resolved to stop himself from obsessing on the case any further.

Out of the corner of her eye she sensed his aura change. He turned, deeply he looked at her, watched her. She returned to brushing her hair, and smiled, for the butterflies began fluttering inside of her again. His needing to clear his throat hinted, he was about to brave something with her.

"Julia," he began, then pushed himself, forcing a shortening of his natural desire to pause, "Did Inspector Guillaume… Marcel… Did he suggest anything…" An emotional upwelling, and the unwanted hesitation happened anyway, still, William managed _not_ to swallow, _not_ to clear his throat again, "…risqué," he managed to risk using the direct word, "with you?"

" _Huh,_ " her mind marveled.

"Why William, whatever do you mean," she asked him, her tone tinted with teasing.

 _Oh my,_ he had to swallow…

 _And she loved it…_

Delightfully, William's voice was scratchy and dry as he delved further. "Ahem…" he cleared his throat again, "When he was here the first time… he and Angelique…" _He would just blurt it out! Get it over with!_ "Julia, did he suggest a ménage à trois?" William asked her frankly.

Her responding gaze into him was deep, and warm, and dangerously frisky.

"William, you shock me," she teased him again, then gave, "No, not Marcel so much as his wife," she answered. _My_ , how she enjoyed the expression on William's face, not wholly able to decipher if it was disapproval or intrigue. Then she added, barely suppressing her giggle, "Marcel seemed to be much more interested in a ménage à quatre, if you ask me…" the urge to giggle won out, "It seems he's quite taken with you… although I'm not quite sure how four would work…"

"I'm not sure how **three** would," William admitted with his typical wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth gesture.

She stood, came so very close to him as he remained perched on the edge of her vanity. Her husband avoided her eyes. She lowered hers down to his tie, felt his breath on her skin, and his eyes on her, safer now. Taking a gentle hold of his tie just below the knot, Julia slipped her hand seductively down half its length and then squeezed it, pulled it up, urging him up off of his perch. He yielded to her wish, stood now right in front of her. And she spoke, _her inner focus honed on his reaction_ , but her eyes, her fingers, busy undoing his tie, "Such suggestions," she asked him, her voice low, close, "they make you uncomfortable?"

Their eyes met, and he held his warm chocolaty eyes to hers. "They do," his look so honest, so opened, it caught her breath. The intensity, the intimacy, was almost painful in its rawness as it passed between them. He gave her his admitting-it wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth look once more. Then, there was a bracing inside of him, locking his arms at his sides, for he had decided to brave asking more. William's chin ducked down, exaggerating his already breathtaking, long lashes, the look of him whirling and flooring her with his vulnerability, and he asked, "And what did you tell them… about their provocative proposal?"

The power of their connection too much, Julia shifted the flow of energy between them, changed it to be more sexual. She began unbuttoning his shirt. William's jaw tightened – he was resisting. Her tone as she answered him was matter-of-fact, but – _my God_ – _what she was about to say to him was not…_ "I told them that the **way** we make love is so extremely focused on one another, so tangled up in each other, and drawn to each other, so utterly and completely wrapped up in each other, that there could not possibly be any room for anyone else."

 _Inside, coming from so very, very deep inside of himself, William felt the implosion of pure joy. She was perfect, this woman, absolutely perfect._

Prompted by those glorious feelings, William swept her off her feet, his tone luminous, and so delightfully cocky, he said, "I guess that's what happens when, if… if a man is fortunate enough…" he bowed softly to her, "to meet that one rare woman who is the perfect match for him in every way, that one woman who fits uniquely with him, who is able to be – to him – beyond both his wife and his mistress… to be his whole world."

The softest hum seemed to seep into the back of her brain, every molecule vibrating so lusciously. "Quite winsome again, husband," Julia told. She tugged his shirttails out of his trousers and undid the lower buttons on his shirt, then stepped closer to him still, and pressed her pliant bosom into his firmer chest as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head, pausing her mouth close to him before her kiss, "Yes, winsome again," and then her lips fell to his, the touch so tender, luring him in, rhythmically deepening. _She loved this man so…_

Their breathing built, growing rushed and strong. Every cell of her wanted him to… " _Please William_ ," she begged him in her head, " _Please_." Their kissing deepened.

William felt her hands touring over the cottony fabric of his shirt, sliding his suspenders down over his shoulders…

And with that, with his imaginings, and anticipation, of what was to come next… William's self-control burst, stormy commanding hunger cascaded out of him, and his hands, through that fabulously silky-smooth satin of her slip, ravaged her every curve. So wild, his kissing, devouring her chin, her neck, her lips, her tongue – her soft, soft, delicious tongue. His hands rough, squeezing, and her body responded to him, moaning, gasping, squeezing back.

Melty and gooey all over, Julia's core tweaked agonously for him, wrenched, and knotted, and wanted, so very desperately wanted him, and her brain demanded, against her conscious will, that she call his name, over and over again, with such a compelling, forceful yearning…

"William. My God, William. Please… Oh, Oh, William… William, I love you so much," the taste of him between each word, _lush, delicious, this man_. " _Finally_ ," her brain rewarded her as her hands tucked into the opening in the front of his shirt, his skin so warm, muscles so rippled and defined, and… "Oh," her moan escaped her throat as her knees weakened so, " _So strong. He's so strong,"_ her brain trumpeted and ferociously her womb clenched so tightly it stole her breath away. Utter collapse threatened, surely the floor was floating up, surging up, such a fall loomed, dizziness all around, only her arms around his neck, holding with all her might, to stop it. "William! William!" her untamed whispers so desperate, so helpless in his ear.

His hands, impossible to move fast enough, ventured, took what he wanted, rode up over the magnificent curve of her plump bottom, glided down the backs of her firm, long thighs, lifting and bunching up her satiny slip with heart-racing urgency. Then the flare, the rage, of his fiery exhale with his discovery of her complete bareness, so accessible, right there for him, no undergarments, _right there_ , her warmth, juicy with wanting him, rocketed him out of control.

 _Wham_ , their world spun wildly out of control, William taking her by the backs of her thighs, lifting her up, sweeping her up off of her feet, _Julia losing all concept of up or down_ , she clung to him wholly, her legs wrapped around his waist, holding on for dear life, her arms around his neck, the centripetal force of the swirling whirlwind defying gravity with its torque. _William's head squalled, turbulently soupy with the sensation of her closeness pressed against his stomach_.

 _Boom_ , her back slammed into the cool, solid wood of their closed bedroom door. William was so heavy on her, his breath, primal, junglewild, in her ear. "When you call my name like that…" he told her, raspy and heaving fast and strong, so wonderfully out of breath… The utter crashing of it surging Julia's back into an uncontrollable arch. With everything he had, William fought the urge to pump right this second, wildly, wildly, his body wanted to, so hard. Forcefully he demanded that he keep control.

Surely Julia would die, the spinning in her head overwhelming, _for he was… he was. His trousers, William is taking off, shoving, rushing, to get them off… He's going to… Oh, my God, he's going to…_

AHHH, the steamy declaration of their mutual moan filled the air as he ruptured her, the pleasure of it, the sweetness of him pushing, closer, and closer, threatened implosion. With savage need they sought the ultimate touch. The rhythm, intoxicating, each thrust closer, further, more, so close, almost… There was nothing else in the world but the need to reach the threshold, to reach that one perfect spot. Him, driving wildly forward with his pounding. Her, sucking him in more and more, with everything she had, with every ounce of herself, she pulled for him, wanting every last drop of him.

"William…"

 _The way she said it, he knew it in his soul._

"William, please…"

 _The humungous wave was lifting her, so high, so mountainously high._

Mighty, rugged, he poured all of himself into the effort, his life-force, his power, shoving, launching them over the edge…

 _Silent, paused, floating before the drop, the heaven of the unavoidable promise…_

And it hit, like a maelstrom, wave after wave of heat, molten, delicious heat deluged through every molecule, every atom. Fused, wholly fused, it was so, so, GOOD.

"Mmm," William's contented moan thrilled her to the core. "Julia," he whispered her name with what felt like the last breath he would ever take, he was so completely spent, exhausted, collapsed, "I love you, Julia," his gentle kisses showered across her beautiful, hot, flushed face, lush, and rich, the taste of a few salty tears. She had given him her all, absolutely and completely, everything she had, and he had done the same. Julia clung to him still, her body demanding he stay with her just a little bit longer.

He lifted her away from the door, walked them over to the bed. Artfully, he held her close as he sat, her on his lap, then turned, trusting her to keep their connection with the tautness of her hug, he laid her down underneath him. Her breathing so labored, he reminded himself to hold his weight off of her with his elbows wedged into the mattress. He kissed her ear, her neck.

Her voice was delectable raspy and dry from their spent passions when she said to him, "No one else in all the world knows a love like ours, William."

"Perhaps," he whispered his answer to her. _Unfortunately, for he correctly assessed it would irritate her, he found her argument to be pointless, unprovable…_

He felt her frown under his shoulder, and with that, he rolled them over, bringing her on top. Julia argued with herself in her head, " _William is who William is_." Still, she felt her jaw clench, fighting her annoyance. The words appeared before her, " _William, and his boring, unromantic, logic."_ She managed not to complain, yet failed in holding her telling sigh at bay.

Correcting, he hoped, he said, "But, it feels that way to me, too… if that helps." He tucked his fingers under her chin and lifted her face to his. He gave her a soft smile, requesting it would do.

She returned his smile, and nestled into her place on his chest. Julia puzzled though, about it before she asked. Her tone suggested a change of topic…

 _He noted gratefully._

"William," she started with her query, "How can it be that such a practical and sober man as yourself, can write such passionate and remarkably romantic love notes?"

" _Ironic,_ " he thought as his mind searched the answer, for it was due in part to Inspector Guillaume. Taking a deep breath, indicating the answer would be thoughtful and long, he explained, "Marcel, actually. When he was here working with me to find Monique, and then Monique's killer. We sat in his hotel room and read through a pile of letters the sisters had written to each other. He, um…" William reached up and rubbed his forehead…

 _And Julia wondered if such an insightful man as himself would ever figure out how much the gesture told._

Going on, William said, "He read the letters with an idyllic passion. And… um, he mocked me for lacking passion in the way I read the letters. And, well, he showed me a part of myself, a part I had always been… reluctant, maybe even a bit ashamed of. It wouldn't have been spurted at all though, if I hadn't met you yet. So much of those… thoughts, and feelings, and words, they only happen when I think of you, Julia. And Marcel, he just helped me to find them inside of me."

Her head still down on his chest, Julia felt, for she could not actually could see, his endearing admitting-it wrinkle. She gave him a loving squeeze. "Well, I should thank him then," she replied.

Pillow talk lulled, and Julia settled down heavier on top of him. Her fingers strolled and rubbed the contours of him. Her ear pressed above his heart, she noted that he had not yet recovered from their lovemaking, his heart thundering, and thumping, and still pounding against his chest. Her brain wandered, lovely, the replay, the memory, of the way he had so passionately made love to her against the door. She lifted up, propped an elbow into the mattress to hold her chin so she could see his face. "Such a massive effort, it seems, for you… your body, making love?" she wondered.

He chuckled.

Julia went off on another tangent, pondering aloud as she rested back down on him, "Why, I wonder? Why would God make procreation take such effort from a man?"

"Only those fit enough would make good fathers, perhaps," he suggested.

Julia sensed his curled-up face questioning his own logic. _Her heart flickered with a flare, she was still so very unexplainably madly in love with this man_. She kissed his chest. His breathing was slowing. She interrupted their thoughts to tease him, "I hope it was worth the effort…"

 _She felt his arms draw her near, warming her to her core…_

"Value is comparable to effort, I've found," he said, hoping she would take the opening.

"Oh, I see," she replied, the mischief in her tone clueing him that she had. "So, based on my calculations, considering your rapid heartrate and highly winded state, not to mention sweat… you detective," her use of his title signaling her playfulness and seduction, "quite value making love to me then, yes?" she ended it with a question, forcing him to say it.

"Yes doctor," he responded in kind, "And, I find that once again, I am unable to deny one of your discoveries about what drives me," he gave.

The couple grew quiet. William's mind dabbled for a few moments on Guillaume, his thoughts leading him from the man's unconventional promiscuity being wholly confounding to him, somehow back to the case. Julia's thoughts went an entirely different way.

" _A man puts such effort into getting his seed into a woman,"_ Julia thought to herself. She figured, " _It's all he really has to do to reproduce."_ And then her thoughts arrived at the more personal, thinking that right this second William's seed was inside of her, and that thought, surprisingly to her, made her feel so very happy, and warm, and mushy, like she wanted to huddle around his seed deep inside of her, and surround and nurture it, and love it forever, and with those thoughts she started to feel like she was going to cry. The ache of it was so familiar, the pain, the longing, to have another child, to have HIS child resurfacing. She pushed – hard, to make the feelings sink back down. _She had to accept it… be grateful for William Jr. Their baby was a miracle. She loved him with all her heart._ Her efforts to console herself reminded, coached her towards the positive, towards hope. She was going to Church with William now, every Sunday. They would eventually adopt…

Julia practically jumped when William's voice broke the silence.

"The fingermarks on the two devices we found in the purses were not Catfrey's or Professor Fessenden's," William was working on the case again.

" _Amazing, the tenacity of this man's focus,"_ Julia thought, then added, " _Annoying at times_ ," and in her mind, prompting her to make his admitting-it face to herself. She would play the familiar game with him, though. As soon as she started, finding, as usual, that she thrilled with their intellectual connection as much as their romantic one. "Catfrey was willing to give you his fingermarks?" she was surprised. Explaining, she elaborated, "Weren't you concerned… that your asking him for them would tell him of your suspicions about him?"

William nodded. He had thought of that. "George got them without his knowing," William confided, the sanctity of their home lulling him into feeling it was safe to reveal his sneakiness, "off of a cup of tea, as it were."

"Oh, I see." She marveled, her husband's cunning sometimes taking her by surprise. Back to helping him with the case, she suggested, "Perhaps the fingermarks are his partner's… perhaps this man called Schnozzy?"

There was that familiar frown. "I don't think so," he replied, "The whole point of planting the listening device in the first place is so that the robber would not need a partner, according to Catfrey's theory, anyway. And it makes the most sense that way, with the evidence we have." He sighed, "Though, we do know that a man called Schnozzy purchased these two devices along with four others. I suppose they could be his fingermarks, from when he made the purchase, or, of course, this Schnozzy is the robber."

Julia expected him to rub his brow, but he didn't.

"Well, either way, it suggests that Catfrey isn't the robber," he concluded. "Still, Catfrey knew about those devices, knew that they would be in the victims' purses. He's involved, most certainly…"

"Yes," she agreed. "But I guess you will have to work out how, hmm?"

"Mmm," he answered her.

"You should sleep on it," she advised, suddenly feeling the tiredness of a very long day taking hold.

"Mmm," he answered her again. William stretched over and clicked off the lamp. Nestling in, he said aloud, "Perhaps I'm making too much out of it…"

And Julia thought, the lovely ripples of sleepiness already rocking her, hearing it in Angelique's voice, the saucy French accent mingling the words with an importance in her head, " _making the molehill into the mountain."_

) (

The setting was dark and dank, somewhere in the bowels of the secret passageways of an old, abandoned mansion that Schnozzy had found near to Detective Murdoch's home. It was here that he had moved to once he had finished with all the purchases for their scheme – the listening device to keep an eye (so to speak) on Murdoch, the equipment to make the fake diamond once Sally had delivered the real one for them to serve as their model. The plan had gone well, or so they had thought up until now, Sally having done her part, even planting the lead-crystal, pink-coated, fake diamond, complete with its pouncing-panther-shaped sliver melded inside of it, back where it would be taken as being the Pink Panther Diamond, hopefully for a long, long time to come.

The two men, suitcases and bundles readied by the secret escape door, huddled together in the dim light, with fine wine and a cold but delicious meal between them, listening in to the Murdoch's pillow talk. Other nights had provided a racy, lusty, eavesdropping. This night was no exception, at least, not in that regard. But they had heard terribly upsetting things mixed in with the 'Toronto's Favorite Couple's' wild passions, and they were currently beyond distressed about it.

"They know my name, Neil!" Schnozzy screamed, his panic blatant, his arms pleading, "My name! And they might even have my fingermarks! We have to go – NOW! Now, Neil. Now."

Schnozzy held his beady little eyes to those beautiful, charming, blue eyes of his longtime friend. Neil could think of nothing to say, certain that 'sorry' would not be enough.

Schnozzy's tirade out of his control, his rant went on. But he loved this man, and his desperation, they both knew, was a much for Neil as it was for himself. "I don't understand why you had to tell Murdoch! Why give him that clue – about the ladies' purses?!" his eyes pleaded again. "Now he'll come to arrest you. We have no choice but to run," he insisted.

A sigh first, Neil had to concede, "I made mistake. Schnozzy, I'm so sorry. I got wrapped up in further taunting the man after what had happened at the Ball with his wife. I got cocky, was so sure I had the upper hand."

Then, suddenly remembering the part of Murdoch's conversation with his wife about the constable having gotten HIS fingermarks, Catfrey too felt a wild panic ensue. _Maybe HIS fingermarks were on the fake! The fake that right this very moment was under heavy guard at the zoo!_ Slowly, he ran his memories through his mind. "Schnozzy," he alerted his friend about the new concern, "I remember, distinctly, that I handed the fake diamond to Sally. Schnozzy…" Neil's eyes swelled huge with worry, "I was wearing gloves, but Sally… Sally wasn't wearing gloves, Schnozzy. Her fingermarks are on that fake – I know it Schnozzy! She'll get caught! Murdoch will question her because he knows we… I told him about Paris, and Pendrick's painting of Sally in the nude…"

Schnozzy's eyes shot to glance at the painting wrapped up, waiting to be sent ahead to Chicago with the rest of their things. He spoke, now that it was Neil who was upset, sounding much calmer, now his job to reassure. "You mean that same dreadful, weird, painting you had me pack-up, with all the shapes, and the triangles… That one?"

Catfrey nodded. "Sally will be there Friday night. She's the only one who knows we already made the switch! Detective Murdoch will suspect her. He already thinks she might be involved – because he suspects me, and he knows about our past… and the painting…" _Neil was trying, and failing, not to lose control. He adored Sally Hubbard. She was his one and only "Beautiful Lady," the love of his life. He couldn't, just couldn't let Murdoch get her…_

"Neil, you're making a mountain out of a molehill," Schnozzy poured him another glass of wine hoping it would calm his nerves.

"I have to at least warn her," Neil jumped up, rushed to find his coat.

"We can't take that chance Neil – Murdoch likely has constables watching her hotel," Schnozzy heard the pleading in his own voice again. He took a deep breath, worked to lower his tone. "Think Neil. Be reasonable. Sally will just have to take care of herself – she's a big girl," he reminded Neil of Sally Hubbard's prowess.

Accepting it for now, certain he would think of another way, Neil sat back down. "You're right. I need to think, just a minute. I swear to you Schnozzy, I will not leave Toronto without warning her about the fingermarks and to watch out for Murdoch," he vowed, stubbornly.

"O.K. O.K. We'll think of something," Schnozzy agreed, sitting back down as well.

Neil had an idea, thought it through before he told his plan to Schnozzy. "I'll have Nannette take her a note…"

"That chambermaid… the one I've found you naked with every morning for the past week? Schnozzy worried. _The woman was ditzy, to say the least_. "Neil, she's head over heels in love with you…"

"Exactly!" he charged forward feeling a sense of a silver lining. "She'd do anything for me, I'd wager," he offered. He set about writing the cryptic note to Sally. They would drop it off at Nannette's on their way to the train station. It would all work out. He was sure of it. They'd get to Chicago with the Pink Panther Diamond. Sally would rendezvous after the big bash on Friday. By the time she arrived, he and Schnozzy would have already begun implementing their plan to steal the priceless "Tigers on Bamboo," giving him more valuable CATS for his and Sally's collection, this one consisting of two stunning paintings on top of a fine layer of gold-leaf on Japanese silk screens.

Neil crafted the letter, got it Nannette. Just as they made it onto the train they sat in their seats and Schnozzy attempted to reassure, "They'll never figure out that the diamond in the display case right now is a fake before they leave Toronto."

His tone stern, definite, Neil responded, "Murdoch'll figure it out. But Sally will be alright. She'll make sure there's an explanation for why her fingermarks would be found on the fake… and then she'll get out of there. It'll be alright, even if Murdoch does figure it out. Everything's going to work out." Catfrey nodded to his friend, then his handsome blue eyes stared out the window as the train started to move. " _Good-bye Toronto, and good riddance."_

) (

Nannette opened the envelope and read Neil's note to the toff, the bloodsucker, the vamp.

 _ **My Beautiful Lady,**_

 _ **Make a display of touching the fake with your exquisite bare hands. Be certain that others see you do so. Watch, my most beautiful lady, beware the wily and cunning tiger, the one that hunts, the tiger in the 4**_ _ **th**_ _ **house, the one that watches over the zoo, for his stealthy stripes render him camouflaged in the tall grass. Then come, my love, to our room. Meet me, my beautiful lady, where we planned. I will wait forever, my love, forever.**_

 _ **Your Handsome Cat,**_

 _ **NC**_

Nannette closed the letter. Seething jealousy dizzied her thinking. She needed a plan, a plan that would keep Neil for herself, and rid the world of her competition, this vampireous Sally Charron. She would never deliver this note. Never. Rather, her dastardly plan hatched before Neil and Schnozzy had even boarded the train to Chicago, she would get the letter to the tiger himself, to Detective William Murdoch, the one in the 4th house, at the Constabulary's Stationhouse #4. But, it was essential that her beloved Neil not be caught in her trap, refusing to lose HER CAT in an effort to rid them of his LADY, and so, she would need to send the tiger, the detective, after the wrong scent. Using a pen of similar hue, she signed a different name to the bottom of the letter, surrounding her love's "NC" with a few other capital letters, creating a fake sender, "NANCY." She, herself would go to Chicago and meet him at the hotel. He would surely hear of his precious Sally's demise soon enough. He would be forced to love her, once Sally Charron rested securely in Detective Murdoch's jail cell. Yes, that was exactly what she would do.

)) ((

 _ ***** And so, it seems that there are many who cannot wholly escape the dilemma of the Lady, or the Tiger. Neil Catfrey**_ _ **tried to cheat the fate of the Lady or the Tiger dilemma by sending his latest meaningless conquest with a note to warn his Beautiful Lady, Sally Hubbard, thus planning to have his Lady and to have his freedom, and to also have his coveted masterpiece, the "Tigers on Bamboo" as well. But, there was, what he and Sally had coded as a danger, lurking, using their predetermined signal – a "tiger in the grass," in this case the tiger being the tenacity of her one previous obsession, her William Murdoch, the only other man besides himself to be graced with her blessing of her naked portrait, and he had had to warn his lady to beware of it. Neil had that portrait now, and he would have Sally too. The dangerous tiger – Murdoch, be damned.**_

 _ **But how could Neil Catfrey know that Nannette would also choose between his Lady and their Tiger, sacrificing the Lady to the Tiger itself, in the end. She delivered the note anonymously to Stationhouse #4 that very night, addressed to Detective William Murdoch. And then Nannette caught the next train to Chicago. She too, had had her own encounter with the dilemma of Lady and the Tiger.**_

)) ((


	12. 12: Cat Got Your TongueT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 12: Cat Got Your Tongue?

 _(Note to reader, some references in this chapter are to another story – Murdoch in the Jungle, particularly Chapter 10, The Law of the Jungle)._

It is true, that the world can be an amazingly small place sometimes. Every now and then, coincidences boggle. And so it was for Catfrey and Schnozzy as they fought their inner panic, the local police having stopped their train on route to Chicago, now going from passenger to passenger. Every nerve stood on edge, fighting against the thought that _they were looking for THEM!_ Their adrenalin-pumped brains rushed to explain it to themselves, _Murdoch had already figured it out somehow! He had sent word ahead telling the locals on the train's route that two men had stolen the rare and priceless Pink Panther Diamond._ _They had photographs of Neil! They had a description of Schnozzy!_ What this pair could not have known was that the man in charge – the big, outstandingly ugly, brutish man ordering all his underlings about, was the same man, Flannel Bull, who Murdoch and his little sidekick, Constable Crabtree, had had a run in with just two years earlier. Their paths had crossed during Murdoch and Crabtree's one and only stop as undercover hobos at a "jungle," as the now published book by Upton Sinclair was titled, after the hobo name for a safe meeting place. How could Neil and Schnozzy have known that this depraved policeman had a history of abusing his power, that he hunted good-looking men, for there were no outward clues that Flannel Bull was what the hobos call a 'wolf,' wanting to devour and conquer the tender meat of a 'sheep,' preferring his prey to be both helpless and incredibly handsome? Hence, Flannel Bull's previous predatory sexual interests in a man like Murdoch, at least Murdoch as he had been when undercover in the jungle, an eye-catching, down-on-his-luck vagrant caught in Flannel Bull's trap.

It would be the same problem with Neil – these two thieves on the run just didn't know it yet. The only thing that had saved Murdoch back then was the revolting Flannel Bull's preference for boys over adult men. It was unfortunate, however, that the way events had unfolded for Murdoch in that jungle two years prior had left him feeling a lifetime's worth of guilt and shame, for in the end a teenage boy had been taken in his place, cursed to suffer the sickening fate of enduring the nightmare instead of him. And now, history was about to repeat itself, ironically for the same reason that both Murdoch and Catfrey had been so entangled in their web of jealousy from the night of that dance so recently, with the detective's wife. It was uncommon, these two men's attractiveness, both William Murdoch and Neil Catfrey standing out so clearly from the rest of the men in a crowd. Neil's and Schnozzy's situation only differed from Murdoch's and Crabtree's in that they did not know the _real_ reason for Flannel Bull's interests, with no hobo friends to warn them of the man's dangerous proclivities, and because here on the train the malevolent policeman was unable to make his true predatory intentions obvious to onlookers as he had been free to do in the hobo-infested jungle. It had been different two winters earlier… in the jungle – in the old barn, that night. There, then, the audience had only added to the stimulation, Flannel Bull wholly aware that all those hobo men, each one powerless to stop him, watched on, saw, as his big, burly hands explored his captive's rippled bare-skinned flesh, the entrapped man's exceptional curves and edges so exposed and vulnerable for all to see. Even a big crowd of men had been totally helpless to stop him, as was the lovely man in his grasp, for Flannel Bull's men had the captive's little friend on the ground with a gun to his head, and he had promised most assuredly that the other half of this dynamic duo would have been shot right before his quarry's big, brown, beautiful eyes, should he resist.

) (

Butterflies fluttered nauseatingly in William's stomach, reminding him of how he used to feel, for so many delightful years, when encountering her large morgue door. Back then he would have spent much too much time working to find an excuse to go see her. He still felt the same way, sometimes. But these disturbing symptoms right now, they pointed to a less lovely cause for his butterflies than his head-over-heels untold love. They were caused by an unspoken angst. And try as he might, his mind would not let it go – his awful dreams from last night, hovering in the shadows distinctly hidden from his memory, and then, the worst of it, his rejection of Julia's advances in bed this morning. _What was wrong with him?_

Turning the page, he pushed himself forward, exhaling the pent-up pressures through his pursed lips, giving the door a bigger shove than was required. He had heard it dimly through the closed door, the cheery music playing on her phonograph, but he had not noticed it until he had fully stepped into her world. His hat in hand he paused and let the memory play out, of the first time he had heard it playing. He remembered such warmth flooding his chest then, as he had seen her phonograph spinning at the entrance to the morgue theater… " _Three little maids from school are we. Pert as a schoolgirl well can be. Filled to the brim with girlish glee,"_ the high-pitched song reverberated in his brain. It had served as further evidence at the time that this woman was truly remarkable. But, as if the other shoe had just dropped, the delightful memory was abruptly replaced. Again, the disconcerting memory re-spurted, souring his face with its bad taste, seeing it in his mind all over again, remembering himself turning away, sliding out from underneath her, rejecting that warm and aroused and delectably sexy, sexy woman, whom he loved more than he would ever be able to fully say, coldly just getting up out of their bed and leaving her there, being wholly unable to say anything at all to offer her an explanation.

"Detective!" she greeted him from across the other side of the morgue center floor from the small set of steps by her desk. Her uncomfortable straightening of her skirts signaled, _unintentionally_ , that she was most definitely still feeling bothered. She waited for him to cross to her, his nod before he arrived, tense.

"Doctor," he responded in kind. Arriving near to her, standing below her at the bottom of the steps, _Romeo to her Juliet, his breath just suddenly taken, gone, for a second_. Her look into him covered a breadth and depth that tugged at his every recess, so attuned, searching for what, for why. Her expression told that she remained tender from what had happened between them this morning. The realization hurt him so badly, to have behaved in a way that had caused her pain and worry. His regret forced a quick wrinkle at both corners of his mouth, apologetic its message.

He would retreat into the case, his usual default when the intimate, the personal, became intolerable. He reached into his inside jacket pocket. "There was a note," he began to explain, unfolding the paper, "left anonymously for me at the station…"

"Oh," she responded, stepping down to his level, her eyes drawn toward the note in his hand.

William handed it to her to read. He found it difficult to wait as he watched her eyes zigzagging back and forth over the handwritten words.

It reminded Julia of notes William had written to her, love notes… But it had the added aspect of ominously speaking of profound danger…

 _ **My Beautiful Lady,**_

 _ **Make a display of touching the fake with your exquisite bare hands. Be certain that others see you do so. Watch, my most beautiful lady, beware the wily and cunning tiger, the one that hunts, the tiger in the 4**_ _ **th**_ _ **house, the one that watches over the zoo, for his stealthy stripes render him camouflaged in the tall grass. Then come, my love, to our room. Meet me, my beautiful lady, where we planned. I will wait forever, my love, forever.**_

 _ **Your Handsome Cat,**_

 _ **NANCY**_

She hesitated a moment, having finished the note but gathering her thoughts. He would notice she had stopped reading. A part of her wondered if he would manage to hold his patience. Her blue eyes rose to meet his. As she started to verbalize her conclusions, she ended up giggling at herself, for she felt a bit ashamed that the first thing she was about to say was so very obvious, "Well, it's clearly not meant for you…" _He was certainly no one's 'Beautiful Lady,"_ she reasoned out the rest of it…

"No. No," William pinched his lips together and nodded, unable or unwilling to address the potential humor. Full speed ahead, he started sharing his theories. "I think it's from Neil Catfrey," William informed. The tension, the excitement of the chase building, William's chest heaved with his more hurried breaths. There was a pull to his eyes.

Julia's eyes dropped back to the note. "I see," she said thoughtfully, "It is signed 'Your Handsome Cat.' That could be Catfrey, I suppose. But what about this 'Nancy,' William?" Her eyes glanced into his briefly, then back to the words. "And the 'tiger'… You think it's you, because of the 4th house…" She felt his nod in her periphery.

"And because I am watching over the zoo, the Riverdale Zoo, exactly as it says the tiger does, to catch the home-invasion robber, and to help the French protect the Pink Panther Diamond," he rushed to explain.

"Hmm," she considered aloud, in her thoughts adding other reasons, that _William Murdoch was the smartest man she had ever known, thus fitting with the note's descriptions of this tiger's 'wiliness and cunning,' and as a detective, he most certainly 'hunted' thieves and murderers and all ilk of badguys_ … All of these thoughts occurring while her brain was in such a hurry to figure out who the 'beautiful lady' was that the note was intended for, and at the same time racing down so many other avenues – _whoever the woman was, she would not have received the note as its sender, this 'Nancy,' had expected. And intriguingly, there was this 'fake' the note referred to – did it mean the Pink Panther Diamond – had it already been stolen!? And on a more distant side-note, would such a reserved man as William Murdoch even be able to consider that a woman_ might write a _love letter to_ another _woman? And if that is the case, then would this 'Nancy' be likely to refer to herself as 'handsome?' And, if it is from Neil Catfrey, why would he sign it 'Nancy?'_ Julia's thoughts seemed infinite.

William interrupted, "Julia, there really is no doubt Catfrey wrote it – it has his fingermarks on it," he assured.

That clinched it, she acknowledged directly, "Well that seems convincing…"

He leaned closer, and Julia felt a familiar and wonderful humming surge inside of her, being with him again on an adventure, William's enthusiasm thrilling her so. "You see the signature…" he pointed.

"Yes," she answered, sensing herself hanging on his words. _He amazed her sometimes, she anticipated he was about to do it again._ With such deciphering, her attention honed in on the printed word 'NANCY' at the bottom.

William continued, "That's why I'm here actually. I suspect it has been added… And if I'm right then the ink used for writing 'NANCY' is not the same ink as the rest of note…"

 _She felt the pieces in her brain hurrying to shift, to align, to connect_.

"I wondered if you had a solvent…" he began to ask.

"Of course!" Julia exclaimed, "For a chromatography test."

"Yes," he smiled. _Together was always so much better than alone._

William followed Julia about, reminding Julia of a puppy in some rather adorable ways, while she buzzed around setting up the test, explaining his reasoning aloud, his hands active, Julia "Mm-hmming" here and there as he spoke.

"I believe the 'fake' that the note speaks of is a forgery of the Pink Panther Diamond. And the intended recipient of the note must have touched the fake when switching it for the real diamond, leaving her fingermarks on it. And, whoever this woman is, Neil Catfrey has reason to believe the Constabulary would have her fingermarks on file. Thus, his advice to provide an explanation for the presence of her marks on the fake by making a show of touching the diamond under the eyes of witnesses – in a sense providing an alibi for herself in the diamond's theft. Unfortunately, Inspector Guillaume has insisted we do nothing to raise suspicions in the matter…"

 _Imagining, knowing, that William had just frowned in his presentation of the facts, even though her eyes were focused down on the beaker, and the alcohol and the chromatography paper, tickled Julia delightfully bringing a wise smile to her face._

But then she considered the strangeness of the French Inspector's request and Julia interrupted him. "Why would Marcel do that?" she wondered. _She thought, with an alerting flash, that she saw William flinch, grimace so very faintly, when she referred to the French Inspector as 'Marcel.'_

She had finished setting up the chromatography test, with each ink sample from the note represented as a small dot at the bottom of the chromatography paper, including all the samples from each letter of the word 'NANCY,' as William had insisted. The series of dots floated just above the surface level of the solvent, the chromatography paper hanging from a stand placed above the beaker. William and Julia each sat on a stool in front of the test, reminding themselves that the test would take a few minutes and to be patient.

The momentary silence seemed unfitting. Her potent question about Marcel Guillaume's motives to block William from checking to see if the Pink Panther Diamond had been stolen, to determine if it had been replaced with a fake bearing a fingermark implicating Catfrey's accomplice in stealing it being so obviously tantamount to France's interests left just hanging in the air. _Odd, the way they were both also so keenly aware that the pause was due to something other than that that William wanted to avoid bringing up with her_. The longer they sat there staring at the chromatography test, watching the unnoticeably changing ink dots spread upward into their anticipated variant streams of colors, the more stressful his finally bringing up the uncomfortable topic became. Eventually coming to the point that William found it necessary to both swallow, and clear his throat, before he spoke.

"I think it's Sally Pendr… Hubbard," having started, he intended to rush forward to avoid her questions, her suspicions, her worries, from having a chance to grow, hoping to distract her. "I think the note was intended for her. As you know she's in Toronto, married now to a French Barron, she's friends with the owner of the diamond…" William exhaled, the two of them turning to look at each other. He added, explaining further, "Guillaume believes that if we inspect the diamond to see if it has been traded for a fake, and to check for fingermarks, it will alert Sally…" William frowned. He took a deep breath, "He wants to set her up to lead us to Catfrey, and to recover the real diamond, assuming I'm right about all this."

"There is a certain logic to Marcel's argument," Julia pressed. _It flashed again, across his face, she was more certain of it this time, William's aversive reaction to her mentioning Marcel._ _She considered bringing up what had happened this morning…_ "Is everything alright William?" she asked before thinking it through.

"Sally got away last time. I don't want her to get away again, is all," he offered with another frown. "Besides, I can arrest her for suspicion of the crimes that she committed back…" _William almost said it – stopped himself. He had almost said that it was at the same time in their lives that Julia had left him to go to Buffalo, the same time that she told him she was sterile, the same time that she had wholly and completely broken his heart_. His eyes darted away. He sighed, brought himself back, and went on, "The last time she was here, she masterminded the building and selling of a weapon that could kill thousands and thousands of innocent people…"

Julia remembered, filling the name of the weapon in in her head, " _The microwave deathray – Tesla had helped William on the case."_ _She, too, had had the long-ago ache stir in her heart with remembering the time all this had happened. Her arm twitched with her thought, her wish, to reach out to him, to comfort him, to say she was so very, very sorry for hurting him so badly, back then… to bare her soul to him, again. It never ceased to amaze her how poignant such an old hurt could be…_

William had gone on, "Two men were killed, James Pendrick's fortune, stolen. Not to mention that she shot him right in front of me…" William's voice rose as the significance of Sally's betrayal registered within him, his shock, still to this day, that he had misjudged her so. "And I still suspect she was the one behind the theft of that Rembrandt…"

Julia sighed, her compassion for him deepening. It was rare that a case of his went unsolved. _That Rembrandt theft still bothered him after all these years,_ she noted. _Besides, William had clearly been attracted to this particular woman, back before she had left him for Buffalo._ It had always remained unsaid between them, but she suspected William has always felt that he had been duped by Sally Pendrick's charms. _Perhaps he was being led astray by his attraction to her again?! Perhaps the note was not even written to Sally Pendrick at all!?_

"William," the lift in her voice signaled she was changing direction, "Why do you assume the 'beautiful lady' the note was written for, admittedly from Neil Catfrey, that seems obvious, yes… but the woman he was working with… Could it not be someone else?" Her brain screamed it at her with a jolt _– "that beautiful veterinarian! Of course! Why not her?"_

"William…"

 _There was the slightest hint of teasing… or could it just be a jealous suspicion, with his way she said his name…_

"Perhaps it was this Dr. Mouse… Was that her name? The woman who Angelique said was so gorgeous… the one who was upset about having to dye the lioness pink?"

 _His quick correction…_

"Dr. Elizabeth Mole…"

… _alerted Julia on some levels, made her think that the woman had been too close at hand on her husband's mind… that this attractive woman doctor had gotten his attention much more than she would have liked._

William and Julia held their gaze, long enough for them to bare to each other that they were worried, long enough to remember who they were to each other, and to let a deeper feeling of safety rise up to the surface.

William stepped closer, his eyes never drifting away, not even for the briefest of moments. A deep breath, somehow reassuring them both. "When I interrogated Catfrey…" he ducked down and looked up at her through his lashes, as if inspecting her reaction, then went on, "He told me that he and Sally had… were… lovers." _In William's head he was debating about whether to go so far as to tell Julia about what Catfrey had told him about the painting of Sally in the nude, the one she had teased him about so mercilessly back when it hung on his office wall, giggling and emphasizing the red triangle between the naked woman's legs, calling him "obtuse" for thinking it was the Canadian Shield… It still had a potency to it, knowing that Sally had only ever wanted Catfrey and himself to possess the painting…_

He needed to clear his throat. "Remember James Pendrick called for me last night and left a message with you for me about a missing item…"

Julia nodded.

"It was to tell me that the painting… the painting Sally gave me back then…" he halted.

Julia's look stunned him, stalled him mid-sentence, mid-thought. The look so wise, seeming to know absolutely everything. And with that, a wanting to tease him about it all, and at the same time to tell him that everything was alright.

Knowing they were alone in the morgue, Julia reached up and cupped his cheek.

There was his admitting-it mouth wrinkle. Amazing how it melted her heart.

"Is that what's been bothering you, William… knowing Sally Pendrick is back in Toronto?" she asked him. " _It would explain a few things,"_ she told herself. Instantly she felt a familiar, disturbing, upsurge of jealousy pumping through her veins. _My God, she hated this emotion_. Strongly, she outright overruled it, flung it away. Yet, her subconscious bounced it back up at her, tossing her the flashback of William rejecting her seduction this morning. Meeting the challenge head on, bravely, Julia faced the trouble, asking him, "You were… well, you were not quite yourself this morning…" their subliminal code for not being interested in making love, "Is this why?"

As usual with such questions, _he didn't know!_ And his lack of being able to answer her sent him into a panic. He stood there, stuck, feet seemingly glued to the floor, contending with an inner fight, tackling the feeling of wanting, with every fiber of his being, to run away, to hide, and having it be counterbalanced against his love for Julia, his trust in her, his wholehearted trust in _them,_ really.

He swallowed.

 _More brow rubbing_ , Julia observed.

William's eyes grew so beautifully dark as he tried to read the effect his words would have on her, to see if she would judge him, if she would be hurt. And his heart pounded so in his chest. "I have been… It is not like it would be with someone I had not…"

 _My, another swallow._

"… To learn of her presence here, and then Catfrey drew parallels, and, well, with the history, with how dangerous she had turned out to be, and um, well, with…" he said, finding words, as so often happened when he knew he needed them most, failing him once again. He pleaded, with his eyes, in his mind and in his heart, that she know what he meant, that she be able to see that he was grappling with his own embarrassment as much as with anything else, and that she would not feel challenged by his ever having been swayed by any woman other than herself, that he would not have to explain, that he would not have to convince her that Sally was no threat to them.

Thinking it best to get back to the case, Julia asked, "And you think she's working with Neil Catfrey… what, to steal the Pink Panther Diamond with him?"

 _Relief overflowed through him, somehow lightening him, freeing him from the leaded density of fear and releasing an unseen, but subconsciously sensed, aura of steam._

William's eyebrow shot up. "No, worse than that, Julia. I think they already have, but Guillaume won't let me prove it. He's called in Meyers…"

"I see," Julia said, "A matter of national security, I'm sure," she joked knowingly.

"I don't believe I have much time until Meyers arrives and stops the whole thing. He might even pull us off of the robbery case as well, if Guillaume convinces him we'll frighten Sally off investigating it," he laid out all his concerns.

" _More evidence never hurts_ ," she called her mind to task. Julia lifted the chromatography paper with the series of dots of ink samples from the note out of the liquid solvent in the beaker. The doctor and the detective examined it intensely, both intrigued by the possibilities to be revealed by the stripes of varying amounts of differing colors, pretty streaks of rainbowed pastels of pink and blue and green and yellow that had each risen up from one of the ink dots at the bottom.

"William," her tone alerted him there was something important, "The text of the note, even the 'NC' of the 'NANCY' signature, are all from the same pen, but not the 'NA' before the 'NC' nor the 'Y' after it. They were written with different ink. It was originally signed 'NC' as you had suspected! This is even more proof that you are right!" They shared one of those elated smiles that titillated them both, vibrated their souls, heightened their certainty that they were meant to be together. It was lovely, the temporary gliding of it.

"Well then, detective," Julia said assuredly, "I'd say, that with the results of this new evidence in, and Catfrey's fingermarks on the note, and your interrogation telling that the he and Sally have had, perhaps are still even engaged in, a romantic relationship… it makes sense to bring Sally in for questioning. Just, well, it may be best right now to stick to the other matters, the ones not related to the French diamond specifically, before Meyers has had a chance to stop you. You, husband, are quite an expert at interrogating suspects. She may well slip up, give you some unintended clue?" the lift in her voice at the end turning the statement into a question.

He wrinkled his face doubtfully in reaction to her words.

But then, suddenly decided, William nodded. "Good," he declared simply. He leaned in and gave her a quick kiss. "Thank you, Julia. Talking with you always seems to help," he said.

"Yes, we make a good team," her smile glowed.

"Indeed," he agreed. He turned to go.

About to part, nothing of significance having been resolved between them on the _other_ matter, the unspoken, personal one, disappointment and worry began to spill in, to replace all those warm feelings inside. Abruptly though, hope… anticipation, vibrated to a breathtaking pause, for William had halted in his tracks. She heard him, watched his shoulders rise with his preparatory breath. He turned back to her, his glance into her eyes revealing his pinched lips, and she noticed that, subtly, _there at the corner of his mouth, was the admitting-it, apologetic, wrinkle._ He stepped back to her, held her eyes, and then… she felt it, down low, next to her thigh, out of plain sight. He touched the back of his hand to hers, so tenderly. _William seeking connection_ , his eyes, that secretive touch, told her of his longing to be wholly WITH her. She thought to herself that it was so much like one of those moments between them she would always remember, like when they were standing in the street pretending to be looking in the display window, or talking out in the open in the stationhouse bullpen with his little, nearly secret, touch hidden out of sight, down at their sides, the promise between them, now however, something other than her being married to another man, instead some unidentifiable trouble, the cause for the division.

"I'm sorry… um, about…" all he said.

Julia's brain reasoned it out with the brief silence, William unable to finish. _He would have no reason to regret one of the occasional times that one or the other of them turned down the seductions of the other – it was the WAY he had turned her down, practically running away from her advances… Brave though, his bringing it up so directly…_

Her eyes warmed as she exhaled, unaware she had been holding her breath. "Do you think… Is something wrong?" she asked

"No," his answer came too quickly, "I had had a dream, is all."

"Well, not a sexy one I presume," she joked, regretting risking making him feel uncomfortable, but also wanting to note that their tendency to each have such highly arousing dreams just before waking in the morning was often the stimulus for the delicious lovemaking that tended to follow.

"No," a chuckle. "But I... I can't remember it," he said, developing a frown.

Julia's heart strings tweaked, for William struggled so to better stay in touch with his feelings – she believed he tried so hard for her. His disappointment in himself only serving to make her love him even more.

"William," _the tone of her voice reached deep into him, into his heart, into his soul, into the place sequestered inside of himself that trusted, and, with that touch, came pain along with the healing and the care and the warmth, a burning ache for those heartbreaking times in his life when his trust had been betrayed,_ "If there is something wrong, whatever it is, we will figure it out…" She took his hand in hers, "Have faith."

He chuckled, a sparkly twinkle firing in his eyes with his smile, "So, I see Church _IS_ helping you…"

Now it was Julia's turn to shine that admitting-it, corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle on him. "I suppose," she gave, and tilted herself into his arms. They held each other softly, waited just a moment for their breaths to align unbeknownst to them… safe and secure and solid once more.

Julia's lips hovered and tingled above his ear. "Now, go get 'em tiger," she whispered, then softly kissed his cheek, then slipped her fingers up his arms to hold his strong shoulders. They shared a nod, a smile.

Homburg to head, a winsome bow, and he was off.

Julia turned back to clean up after the chromatography test. She would add these results to the file she had started on the robbery case, thinking the two cases might be linked, both involving the theft of jewels. She started to hum aloud, the structure of the morgue improving the quality of the notes – _much like William's stand-up bath – 'shower,' she so loved the word, like you're bathing out in a lovely warm downpour…_

Her mind back to her work, she thought, " _Even though there was no body in these cases, no postmortem results to record, there was much of the work involved in such investigations that constituted forensic work." So often now, she helped him with crimes beyond mere murders._ Like waves rippling through the sea, intermittently the crest is reached, and what one can see shifts, poised, suspended there before it drops back down, and her thoughts returned back to their conversation. _It truly was something she would likely not have said before… "Have faith,"_ she nodded in agreement with herself.

" _Perhaps a different record on the phonograph_ ," she interjected.

Then, sitting at her desk, the music soothing in the air, she found herself reflecting on attending Mass at his Catholic Church once more. She found a pride, perhaps more a self-satisfaction, in going with William on Sundays. It had been less oppressive than she had expected. _In some ways it felt like psychotherapy – calling on one to engage in self-reflection, particularly in Confession, at least with Father Clemmons it felt that way. Although, he is likely a much more modern Catholic priest than most, for that she felt lucky, for herself but even more so for William. And there was the element of human connection. For someone like William, who had difficulty knowing himself and connecting with others, she could see better now how it was that the Church would bring profound meaning to his life._

The record reached the end, its repetitive bumping against the edge calling her to move on. She had a class to lecture later. Unsure whether she would see William, Julia would go out to lunch without him. So much softer now, the impact when the memory of him turning away from her this morning re-played. They would work it out, she was certain of it.

) (

Pedaling his bicycle, enjoying the chill of the breeze, William rode back to the stationhouse from the flower shop, bouquet of yellow and orange roses safely secured in the rack. He had chosen those two specific colors to meld the love and devotion of their marriage with the profound passion of their lovemaking, at least usually, and except for his strange reaction this morning. It was his plan to leave them secretly for Julia in the morgue. She would discover them waiting for her at her desk. He had seen her head out to lunch, and all the morgue attendants had left early – no postmortems on the schedule. _Having a key to the morgue, it wouldn't really be as much sneaking in as taking advantage of the fact that the place was empty…_

His mind, as was common, wandered back to the case. He had called Guillaume, found out from the French Inspector that the owner of the Pink Panther Diamond and Sally Charon were expected to meet for lunch together at the zoo. He had decided it would be best to retrieve her for questioning himself, rather than to send a constable. _After all, he had previous connections with her – it would likely raise less suspicions this way._ He had not informed Guillaume of his intentions. He would take a carriage to the zoo, hoping to be there by the time their lunch had finished, and then pull Sally aside, ask her to go with him quietly, figuring she would prefer it that way as well. He clamped his lips together to himself, accepting that he would have to tread lightly. Even if she confessed to the crimes he would be asking her about, he knew full well he would have a battle on his hands with Meyers about actually arresting her. He sighed to himself, standing on the pedals to confront the lifting of the hill… " _Julia was right, there was a logic to Guillaume's plan to use Sally to find Catfrey and the diamond…"_

 _Whack_ – the flash of the memory from this morning hit. _Such a skin-crawling sensation when he had felt her body from behind him, her hot breath in his ear, her hands,_ somehow strangely too small _, riding all over his chest… Unacceptable, to feel that way about Julia,_ he shoved it away – HARD.

" _So many questions about Catfrey's note. Who left it for me?"_ he wondered. " _And why would Catfrey send such a note to Sally at all, why not just meet her?_ " the questions badgered. _The note said that the 4_ _th_ _house was the place where the tiger who was supposedly after Sally was housed – that had to be Stationhouse #4, didn't it?_ Then William remembered Catfrey's interrogation, _maybe the man had thought he had revealed too much, having told about his being Sally's lover, and Sally wanting to share her shockingly seductive painting only with two men in all the world, each of them… "Implying that I had had a similar relationship with Sally. Most assuredly, I DID NOT!"_ William's jaw clenched tight, his anger showing itself. The fury was taken out on his bicycle, his pedaling now a frenzy.

)

William rested the bike against the side of the morgue. Roses in hand, he turned the key in the lock, grateful that its having been engaged indicated his stealth would likely be successful. _It would take the romance out of his gesture if she caught him._ He warned himself, "S _he could be back any moment."_ His detective mind enjoyed being on the other side of a crime, sort of. " _Not all break-ins are to take something,"_ he reminded himself as he located a vase for the flowers, " _Sometimes the culprit leaves something that wasn't there in the first place rather than takes…"_

WHAM

With such a wallop, his mind was flung into that special dimension that his brain sometimes found – defying time and space, it soared, tentacled down web strands, making connection after connection after connection, _SAW_ so much. He would never know why or how he had figured out, but he did, with a panic and a rage all at once. _Catfrey had snuck a listening device into his office, or… "Oh, that's it!"_ it yelled at him, _"THE HOUSE! He's hidden a listening device in our house! It would explain so much – how Catfrey knew to warn Sally, and how he had known it would be best for him not to go to her in person, that we would be on the lookout for him. He must have overheard us talking about the case! That's probably why he showed up to be questioned_ exactly _when he did. I thought it had been so odd, the way the man walked into the Stationhouse the very morning after I had told Julia that I was going to bring Alan Clegg in to help find him… that I suspected he was an American. Catfrey had been so smug – like, somehow, he held all the cards…"_

Another strand in his brain tangented off, working to determine the means Catfrey had used to get the listening device implanted into their home. _"Maybe the night the scrutiny camera took that photograph…_ he thought, immediately followed by self-reproach – " _So stupid not to develop the picture it had taken!"_ A part of him defended, reminded of the rush at the time, the pressure from all around, the awful headlines in the newspapers, rendering it a priority to set the booby-trap up at the Body Farm as soon as possible, to catch the Body Dumper killer.

William reached up and rubbed his brow, Julia's flowers now in the vase. _It was so frustrating, another case unsolved._ That Body Dumper case, at their own, now quite controversial, body farm, would be the only one so far this year that he had not been able to 'close' as Julia liked to say. Quickly, the pleasant flicker of the old memory played in his mind as he headed across the morgue to make his escape, _the two of them stepping down into the morgue theater together, Julia admiring her own new terminology for solving a case – "case closed_ ," he heard her announce it again in his head _. "Well, not this one, it seemed,"_ he scowled at himself _._ _And now he might be forced to fail on the Home-Break-In robberies as well, if Guillaume got Terrence Meyers to do his bidding._

And with that, he was back to the Pink Panther Diamond case again in his head, reworking the same problem, " _Maybe it was this Schnozzy character, working in cahoots with Catfrey, who planted the listening device._ The ' _click'_ sound of the key in the lock, re-locking it to assure Julia would not be suspicious when she returned to the morgue, and then it hit him – " _Of course! Catfrey didn't need to break-in to get the device into the house!"_ The sting of the discovery compounded the hurt of the memories of that anguishing night at the Ball as they re-ran through his mind, William's heart wrenching with agony and stomach-turning jealousy while re-seeing Julia wiggling and giggling her flirtations at Catfrey, dancing with him, her gorgeous blue gown flowing along with their graceful movements, her blue-sequined purse dangling right there on her wrist the whole time. _Catfrey could have dropped the device into her purse at any time, maybe even while the two of them were whirling and twirling about as they danced…_ Brutally, William's fists clenched rigidly remembering Catfrey dipping her back, wholly inflamed by the sight of Julia lying underneath the other man, horizontal under him, in HIS arms, her glossy blue eyes held to his… _she had looked so, so, astoundingly beautiful…_

Such force, the jealousy, the fury, it nauseated him. Unconsciously, he soothed himself, rubbing his fretted brow. A sigh. " _The device is relatively heavy_ ," his more rational mind took back control, imagining the listening device being dropped, falling into Julia's purse, as he mounted back up on his bicycle, " _It would most certainly have sunk down to the bottom under all the other items_. _Julia must not have noticed it… with our fighting afterwards."_ William turned towards their home rather than the stationhouse, making haste.

)

His bicycle dropped against the front porch, up the front steps, in the front door, no announcement, just running up the stairs. Eloise, out of the corner of his eye, he called out the explanation, "I have to check something," he said, breathless, from roused emotion as much as from physical effort.

William's brain chanted, " _Blue purse. Blue purse_ ," but his eyes caught sight of their bed. Now made, _Eloise had tidied_. And the disturbing memory invaded again – he had been asleep, lying on his side, facing away from her. Her subtle movements behind him, and then he had felt her hand touch, her fingers cupping around the bulge of his shoulder muscle, her hand, so small in comparison to his brawny build. Sickening, her humid breath in his ear. And then she had rolled him… (It reminded him of that first dream he had ever had of the two of them lying in bed together. Her touch, her request, had been so delicious in that dream). " _Why not this one?"_ (He had dreamt, back then, that he had confessed his love for her, despite knowing of her abortion, and despite his courting Enid. It had felt wonderful to lie with her so intimately in that dream), but now, now the same gesture from her, with him half-asleep and half-awake, this morning, and all he had felt was revolted. This morning, he had acquiesced, turned to her. He had let her roll him onto his back, _even though it had felt to be against his will_ , but – " _Why let her do it if you did not want to?!"_ his self-loathing screamed its reprimand. Then, so suddenly, she had been on top of him, and all over him, and he had felt so very disgusting.

All of a sudden, William realized where he was, found himself staring at their bed – lost, humiliated, confused. " _Damn it, William!"_ he hammered himself. " _The purse!"_

 _Julia's closet. "Professor Fessenden said that Schnozzy purchased six devices…" So many purses. "The blue one! Closest to the front… Of course, logical – she used it last."_

Julia's blue-sequined purse shoved down on the mattress, opened up in a rush, William's brain reasoned, " _It would look like the ones in Madame Banner's and Madame Hubbard's purses…_ "

Out of the blue, the devious device was exposed. William held it out in his hand, right there in front of his very own eyes. _It was true!_ The whirlwind of emotions pumping through him threatened collapse – he was absolutely furious, jaw clamped so tight the pressure of it itched his teeth in his gums, him raging to himself that he didn't care if they snapped right out of his mouth. _He'd kill him_ … his last thought accompanying the fantasy, _or was it a memory – from time he punched Darcy_ , of his fist pounding into the man's face, Catfrey's teeth cracking with the sheer force, his neck snapping into a spin as he fell to the ground… before William heard his own self-coaching talking him down. " _The listening device's receiver had to be within 5 blocks…"_

Wham

The thought cut with its interruption, " _He'd have heard everything – our lovemaking! Our fights. The baby coming in in the morning. Not just when we talked about the cases."_ William tried to ground once more, pull back. _"I'll get George to check every building in the radius…"_ And then, William remembered the abandoned old mansion! " _Oh, that's it,"_ he told himself, " _Catfrey'll be there!"_ Most assuredly, he would send George to check there first. He made the call from the house, then caught a cab to hurry to the zoo to intercept Sally. Things were happening quickly now.

) (

Inspector Brackenreid's office was crowded. All men, Julia teaching her class at University, Terrence Meyers and Inspector Guillaume shared the sofa. Meyers was stinking up the place with his cigar, and yet, William actually found Guillaume's and Clegg's little pasty cigarettes even more irritating. William had reluctantly taken a seat in one of the chairs in front of the Inspector's desk, Clegg the other… that is until Thurston Howell, _the First_ , as the man insisted on being called, had dragged Alderman Lamb down to the stationhouse.

During the introductions, William had found himself wondering if this Alderman Lamb was related to the Detective Lamb he had had convicted for taking the law into his own hands and murdering three men and chopping them up and disposing of their bodies in blocks of cement all those years ago. His answer would come rather quickly, for Howell and Lamb were there to stop William's investigation into the Pink Panther Diamond theft, and Alderman Lamb used _his son's case_ as proof, claiming that, "this detective of yours is a stickler for the law… so much so that he had my son sent to jail for setting things right!"

Upon the two men's arrival, the Inspector had barked out into the bullpen for a constable to bring in another chair, and now William stood alone, both literally and metaphorically, while Howell pompously demanded of each and every man present that they agree that there would be no interruptions to his and his wife's – "Lovey's" – party schedule.

William was dumbfounded when it was determined, unanimously, that he would have to stop his investigation, that he would stop his interrogation of Sally, that he would not even be permitted to check the famous French diamond. All despite the fact that he had evidence – good, sound evidence, from the note Catfrey had intended to send to Sally, that the diamond being guarded at Alderman Lamb's Riverdale Zoo was a fake, and that Neil Catfrey, and his accomplice Schnozzy, had already stolen it, with Sally's help, and further that her fingermark would even be found as proof on the fake at this very moment.

Under pressure from Guillaume, Meyers had pressed him about his interrogation of Sally Hubbard – the one he had been conducting before he had been summoned into the Inspector's office. Now it seemed he would be forced into letting her go. It was infuriating. Meyers had asked if Sally had confessed to any of the older crimes William had brought her in for questioning on – killing Tesla's assistant with the microwave deathray, and attempting to sell the deadly weapon to Turkey, and even using the deathray machine to try to kill himself and Meyers and Crabtree and Tesla in a barn as part of a dastardly trick. It had only been William's quick thinking at the time, instructing them all to dive and submerge themselves in some water troughs, that had kept Sally from accomplishing her plan. He remembered, he almost even told them but had stopped himself, that the deathray had magnetized his badge, re-feeling the ache of the memory of his badge clicking to Julia's pendant when she kissed him goodbye before leaving him to go to Buffalo.

Even William's discovery of Catfrey's planted listening device – the device itself linking the Pink Panther Diamond case to the home-invasion robbery case because it was the same type of listening device they had found in the victims' purses after they had been robbed, and now William had found one of these same devises in his own home. All that argument had accomplished was that now his working on the robbery investigation had been put up on the chopping block as well.

There had been a glimmer of hope when George had hurried in, his excited knocking signaling to William that they had found Catfrey's hideout. He had been right, the listening device receiver had been found hidden in his neighborhood's abandoned old mansion, in a secret, "safe room," George had called it. William had managed to hold his tongue while George rambled on and on about finding it because of his remembering Beaton Manor – and the secret passageways the detective had discovered there, but the Inspector had not held his patience, snapping at George to get on with it. They had found equipment used to make the fake Pink Panther Diamond – a glassblowing oven, pink coating sheets, and Catfrey's drawings along with photographs of the real diamond's panther-shaped flaw inside of it, all providing solid proof it had been stolen and replaced with a high-quality fake… and that it had been done, and therefore had been stolen by, Neil Catfrey and Sally, and probably this Schnozzy as well.

Inside William's head he debated about revealing what he knew about Catfrey and Sally's romantic relationship – about mentioning the portrait of Sally and how Catfrey had been trying to steal it from James Pendrick because Sally wanted him to have it – just as she had wanted William to have it all those years ago, deciding it was not necessary because the note spoke clearly of Catfrey's and Sally' love. But then George added more. Besides telling them all that Catfrey and Schnozzy had been seen boarding a train to Chicago… steaming William into wringing his fists for he was forced to hold back on his pursuit, and they were most assuredly getting away with the diamond, George added that the two men had had with them a large trunk and a large package that was most likely a painting…

" _Of course he did_ ," William thought to himself sarcastically, remembering Julia giving him Pendrick's message that the _ITEM_ he had asked about WAS missing, at the time the distraction helping to deflect some of his discomfort for having forgotten about Marcel and Angelique Guillaume's visit. William accepted his powerlessness and let it go, a rub to the brow and a sigh all he had to cope. Guillaume had argued for intentionally letting the thieves believe they had accomplished their theft, and then following Sally to get to the diamond back, and its thieves, all in one swoop. He had no choice, it seemed, in the face of Guillaume's logic. He told himself to be grateful that he still had the home-invasion robbery case when all was said and done.

) (

Julia heard him come in, from upstairs in their bed. She snuggled a little deeper into the mattress. She would let him come to her.

Not long, the house closed up for the night, William rounded the corner of their stairs, comforted by the fact that their bedroom door was opened, a warm, low light glowing into the dark hallway. He glanced in as he passed by their door on his way to kiss William Jr., _Julia was in bed_ , he noticed.

 _The toddler seemed to sleep through anything these days,_ he thought gratefully, admiring their son, stroking his hair, _dark like his, curly like hers._

His footsteps in the hallway again, and Julia sat up in the bed, waited.

Their eyes met from across the room. "Julia," he greeted, giving her a slight nod.

"William," she answered, tossing the covers aside and standing to approach him. "I suppose much has happened with the case?" she asked, as well as told, for he would know she had seen her purse on the bed… and that she would have figured out about the listening device, and besides all that, he was quite late.

She darted her eyes over to her vanity, his eyes followed. The blue-sequined purse rested there.

"Mm," he answered her, his admitting-it face telling her she was right on all accounts.

"Would you like some dinner?" she asked. "Eloise made your favorite potatoes – au gratin?"

She watched the potato news change his mind with a smile.

He took a deep breath and decided, "Tempting, but I think I'm too tired."

Now standing close enough to touch him, she noticed he had taken off his jacket and she rode her fingers up his vest, over the smooth, sleek metal of his badge, to his tie. As she spoke to him her eyes remained focused down on her undoing of his attire. "I suggest I warm you up a plate and bring it up, while you shower. You'll sleep better washed and fed," she offered, adding with a playful whisper, "husband."

"I knew there was a reason I married you," he smiled at her, placing his hands over hers to stop her advances.

"Good," she nodded and headed off to do the tasks.

)

Julia had the plate of food waiting for him at the vanity when he emerged from the bathroom ready for bed. "Oh good," she said as he came over to her, "I see Eloise changed to your red pajamas. We'll need the blue pajama top for your Halloween costume. Only a day away now," she added, jumping her eyes wide to show her excitement about it all.

His look, attempting to mirror her enthusiasm, weak, though he was quite glad that they had worked out his, and hers, nearly topless display.

He sat and began to eat.

Julia collected the purse to return it to her closet.

"You figured it out?" he said, "Catfrey…" he paused thinking that was enough.

"Yes," she replied.

William sighed and then thought aloud, "Catfrey didn't break-in directly… he never had to actually enter our home. It's infuriating to think it – but we BROUGHT him in."

 _There had been the risk of it, that Julia would feel responsible. He heard it in her voice as she corrected him…_

" _ **I**_ brought him in, William, not you," she told. She considered dredging it all up again, apologizing to William for her immature flirting, especially now that they were aware that it had cost them not only the personal pain, but intrusion into their home as well. It might have been her use of the word ' _intrusion_ ' in her mind, but suddenly Julia had an uneasy feeling, then a memory – she remembered that odd day, back a month or so ago when she found the baby's window opened while he was napping. It had been too cold. She didn't think William would have left it opened. It bothered her then… _Could it have been evidence of an actual intrusion?_ Unnecessary now, now that they knew HOW it was that Catfrey had gotten in. With that, she brushed it aside.

William's mind must have traveled an entirely different path, for when he spoke again it was to argue against Julia's self-reproach about it being her flirting that had allowed Catfrey to sneak the listening device into their home. He reached out for her hand, his smile warm when she gave it to him. "Julia, I told you this before, but I don't believe Neil Catfrey was faking his attraction to you. And we already worked out _your_ reasons," he said with such solid certainty it reassured her. Then William continued making his point, "You know full well that both Madame Banner and Madame Hubble had similar listening devices planted in their purses at similar big events… hmm?" he asked for her nod. "And even though Catfrey may not be the robber, you can bet the robber didn't have to flirt, and dance, and dip…" _William found it irresistible NOT to add the most egregious part of the whole affair to his list,_ "… either of these ladies in order to get the listening device into their purses." William paused again, insisting she was with him.

She nodded. _In other circumstances she might have giggled at the thought of someone as handsome as Neil Catfrey dipping the extremely plump, short, old, Madame Banner back on the dance floor, but she was feeling the slightest sting from William's mentioning of that particular event, so the urge failed to arise._

The softest exhale through William's nostrils before he went on revealed his thoughts, " _Good."_ _That part was settled._ "There are many different ways that Catfrey could have gotten that device into your purse," William reasoned it out, "He just preferred THAT way – because of you," William rested his case with a winsome smile.

Julia's smile in return told it had worked. She rocked and swayed, flirting with him now, subtly, "Thank you, William," she said.

She let go of his hand to let him finish eating and leaned back against the wall between the vanity and the bedroom door, crossing her arms across her chest. Curiosity returned to the forefront of her mind, prompting her to ask, "So, what did you find? Why are you so late?"

William filled her in, telling her about the hide-out in the old mansion with the glassblowing machinery Catfrey, or maybe his accomplice Schnozzy, had used to make the fake Pink Panther Diamond, and the listening device receiver. And that there were witnesses who saw the two men board a train for Chicago. He complained about Inspector Guillaume and Meyers and the Inspector, and even Alan Clegg and Alderman Lamb all supporting Thurston Howell's wishes not to even check to see if the diamond currently under guard at the Riverdale Zoo is actually the Pink Panther Diamond or the replica the note from Catfrey to Sally spoke of.

"And what of Sally Pendrick… I mean Hubbard?" Julia asked, trying not to appear too intrigued.

A flash of memory of his interrogation played in his mind, _Sally slyly suggesting, "Detective, you can't really prove the device you 'caught' me with was deadly, a microwave killer as you claim," and him knowing – to the point of it making his blood fume, that she was feigning blond ditziness. Arms wide with disbelief, he had replied, "It cooked a man's organs from the inside out, according to our coroner. And it magnetized my badge!" Sally had held her eyes, blue and pretty, to his firmly when she answered, "You can't prove it was the same device," she suddenly was so smug. "Not so dumb after all," he remembered sarcastically thinking in his head. "Besides detective," Sally had tried to wiggle away, to change the subject, "It was you who killed Karnaki…" So quickly he had corrected, "No!" almost yelling it with his anger, then calming, "I simply reflected the deathray back at him. The amount of destruction, his being practically evaporated, only further proves it was the weapon I'm claiming it was," he had clenched his teeth with the assertion. Casually, the woman had said, "So you say. I deny all of it."_

"William?" Julia pushed, his hesitation too long.

"Oh," he turned his attention back to his nearly finished dinner, "She denied everything. And Inspector Guillaume insisted Meyers stop me from arresting her – on any charge, so she could be used to lead him to the real diamond. I'm pretty much off that case. They'll likely follow her to Catfrey in Chicago."

"So, they all believe you about it all, though… that Catfrey and Sally worked together and already have replaced the real diamond with a fake – that it was them who stole the diamond?" she stepped away from the wall, hopeful, interested.

"Yes," he answered, "But Sally is to be left alone." She watched him frown. "She'll get away again," he grumbled.

"Have they at least agreed to allow you to continue your investigation into the robberies – Halloween is only a day away… the Howell's big bash?" she suddenly worried. "Certainly, they'll allow it. You have devised a whole plan – you have undercover constabulary members to watch out for the robber when he plants a listening device into someone's purse, and you narrowed down potential targets, and found places within the 5-mile radius where the robber could listen in to know when the couple will be heading home. It's your best chance to catch him!"

William nodded, thinking to take it as the bright side. He pinched his lips together, admitting he had wanted more and answered, "They have."

Julia leaned back against the wall. "Well, there's that at least," she mumbled. Her mind returned to the purse. It was such a creepy feeling, being overheard in such a clandestine way, living your day to day life and the whole time someone was listening in on you without you having a clue. With a whack the realization hit her, _"He would have heard everything! When we made love!"_

"William," the pleading in her voice, in her eyes, dire. "Catfrey heard…" her eyes darted over to their bed.

William had figured she would get there eventually, just as he had. He watched the awareness cover her face. Her gaze came back to him, gaping. Her brain registered it inside her head, " _William seems so calm."_ And then her logical mind grasped the whole situation _, "Of course, he has already gone through all of this, earlier,"_ and she understood.

"We have no choice now but to accept it," he said to her with his characteristic corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle. He hoped it would soothe her. Earlier, maybe because William was a man, soon after first being embarrassed in thinking that Neil Catfrey and his little sidekick Schnozzy had overheard them during their rather robust and passionate – and frequent – lovemaking, he had come out of it in the end feeling chest-puffing proud. Thus, there was a good reason that William sounded outright cocky when he said to her, "I suspect our friend Catfrey got quite an earful…" and then such a sly expression appeared on his face, giving Julia the slightest moment to prepare, "Like that parrot at the hotel…" and William Henry Murdoch proceeded to imitate the parrot imitating Julia's cries and gasps when in the throes of lovemaking, "Oh William! Don't stop, William! William! Please… Please, William."

Mortified, absolutely mortified all over again, Julia's face went an odd blank. Petrified panic in her own inner voice, she thought, " _The entire Windsor House Hotel had probably heard us - ME, if not actually when we were doing it, then that loudmouthed parrot when it cawed it out over and over again like a broken record, and everybody thought it was ME…"_

Fortunately, Julia Ogden was by nature good-humored, and a part of her couldn't help but agree that it was quite funny. And William's face held no judgment, and there was that air of pride in him too. She remembered it from back when they first discovered what the parrot had been doing, explaining all those noise complaints. It won her over. "It is somewhat," she conceded with a chuckle, her yielding freeing William to wholeheartedly laugh, dominoing their laughter into side-hugging hysterics. "Remember the clerk…" she folded over holding her belly…

Through his own laughter William imitated the man's snobby delivery of his telltale question perfectly, "Your name is William, is it not sir?"

"Tears glistening her eyes, Julia rushed to blurt out, "And then he read us the Noise Complaint…" and now Julia herself took fun in imitating herself as the clerk had imitated the parrot imitating her, "Oh… Oh, William! William, please, please. Oh." It truly had been uproariously funny, and the couple now enjoyed the hearty shared laugh.

Exhausted, red-faced, the joyful wave passed.

"You know, I don't think I ever told you this," William said and then pushed his chair back and came to her, now more serious. Grasping one of her tempting curls between his fingers, he said, "When George and I were undercover as hoboes on the train – to Winnipeg, well, Chicago really, he told me that he HAD heard the parrot doing its routine of you… remember that morning, when he told us about the talking parrot in the suite below ours…"

"Oh dear," Julia exclaimed.

William stepped close to her and whispered, "I think he was impressed," erupting Julia into a melty happiness with William's secret delight with the whole matter.

Whispering back, she said into his ear, "As he should be, detective." William brushed one of her curls back from her face as he soaked in the marvelous feelings of his love for this wondrous woman for that one dangling second. But then, _it was just the way he was_ , his attention went back to the case.

Back to his seat at the vanity to continue eating, William told her, "I have been trying to remember what things we said here in the bedroom since we got home from the Ball that night," he began the conversation anew.

Giggling first, she complimented, "So, you know everything then… being William Henry Murdoch." He did have an uncanny memory, after all. She giggled even harder when he lifted an eyebrow at her, with his frown, to scold.

It quieted between them, and Julia, too, started to rerun their conversations in her head. She started at the beginning, as is logical. "First, I had my purse with the device in it when we left the Ball, and Catfrey left before us, so he could have been at the old mansion listening when we came home…

"Catfrey would have heard us that night – after… after I had behaved so horridly!" She panicked, for she had hurt William badly, and they had argued.

Mid-chew, William answered with his mouth full, hurried to reassure her, "Much of it would have been out of earshot from the purse I think," remembering her coming to him downstairs in his workroom while he worked ludicrously hard at lifting his weights. _It was fortunate_ , he thought, _that he did not actually remember the exact conversation between them that had happened before that – while in their bedroom, for it would have smacked of precisely what Julia was worrying about having Catfrey eavesdrop on._ It replayed in William's rapid mind…

 _ **Julia had the purse with her when she followed him up to their bedroom. Catfrey would probably have heard him bumping things about as he gathered up what items he needed to spend the night on the couch. Then he would have overheard their whole conversation, Julia asking,**_ _ **"Is it because I danced with Neil Catfrey?" and him asserting, "You did more than dance, and you know it Julia." Catfrey would have been feeling quite impressed with himself,**_ **William figured** _ **,**_ **working as much to fly through the whole memory as he was to shake it off.** _ **Julia told him she had done it, flirted so blatantly with the other man, because she wanted him to feel jealous, and he had found that to be unbelievable,**_ **he remembered,** _ **yelling at her, "Why!? Why would you do that?" before he started slamming items into his pile for the couch. Then, feeling completely defeated,**_ **he remembered he had told the room – and with a sting he realized it was actually Catfrey, rather than the room, who had been listening** _ **, "All I felt was not good enough, utterly inadequate, insecure… and furious, Julia." And that would have been it. After that, he had left the bedroom and she had followed him downstairs right after. William remembered that much later that night they had talked it through downstairs in his workroom, and then had made love in the shower. Julia could be noisy, but he figured the shower was too far out of earshot of the listening device hidden in Julia's purse for Catfrey to hear her, William's memory so keen that he even remembered that she had left it on her vanity.**_

It had all happened so quickly, and all that likely showed on the outside of the whole mind-trip was William's sigh as he accepted it once more. And there was a subtle tightness in his jaw as he concluded that it was likely Catfrey's overhearing those painful words between himself and his wife that had rendered the man feeling so superior the next day when he had come in for questioning.

As William refocused on the here and now, became aware that Julia was waiting for him. "Remember," he encouraged, "We talked downstairs in my workroom. We worked it all out. We even…"

William watched her body change as she remembered they had made love.

Relieved, Julia interrupted, "In the shower… Yes, it was lovely. I remember." The pause was brief before she asked, "Do you think he heard us…"

"Your purse was out here," he quieted, "Not that time," he assured, and then gave her his admitting-it wrinkled corner of the mouth look, for Catfrey had most definitely overheard them making love an enormous amount of other times. William watched as there was an alluring change in her. " _Perhaps…_ " and he suddenly realized that all the times this had happened to her – and to him, it must have appeared like that to the other one of them, _"…she's having a fantasy… perhaps the shower, something else…"_ Sweetly, and a little embarrassed, he remembered his first fantasy, _"The lung water!"_ he panicked for himself all those years ago, now realizing, " _She probably knew!"_

All this making love talk tempted Julia to imagine making love now. _She envisioned seducing him, straddling him there in her vanity chair, kissing him and squishing her body against him. Moving her body over his, into his, and touching him… everywhere._ She looked to his plate. He was nearly finished eating. "William," she said…

And his every cell was alerted, for her tone was most definitely lusty. He swallowed, darted those gorgeous eyes of his to check her intentions in her face.

 _Marvelous, he was stunned._

She took the fork from his hand, placed it at the edge of his plate, and then slid the plate away. William pushed back his chair with her unspoken request.

Oh, she relished the feeling of his eyes on her, his chest beginning to heave, as she feigned ignoring him. She gathered up the hem of her nightgown, wrinkling it higher and higher, raising it, revealing her long, willowy legs.

There was a sound, _nearly silent_ , William's breath stolen at the sight, _naked, all the way up_ , her thighs so white and creamy, and that lush mound of fuzzy hair at the crown.

Julia glanced back behind herself into the vanity mirror, saw William's eyes follow hers, become focused on her reflection, down lower, where his most primal urges forced him to look. And then she teased him so mercilessly, slowly raising the white, cottony fabric upward. William's pupils becoming pools of black as in the mirror her pair of luscious mounds of rounded flesh poked out from under the backside of the cloth. With a grace, her back arched tight, she lifted her leg to straddle him, fully aware of the rush of cool air reaching her exposed most private place, as the spreading of her legs around him caught the rest of the hem of the nightgown and lifted it up to her hips.

 _She had nothing on!_ – the shot, the lightning bolt, straight to his groin, every drop of his blood racing to that one spot, the scrumptious screaming in it crazing him, for he had caught a glimpse of her, so delicious… And he wanted her, with a fury that burned through him making him feel… _so… strong_ and dizzyingly wild. He wanted her, so urgently, _ON him_ , that lush, steamy woman, sexy and warm, _ON him_.

As she settled down on his lap, he sensed, his skin so ready, her humid heat just above him… only the thin, thin, cloth of his pajama bottoms in the way. The scent of her, her soft, squashy body pressing against him. _Flailing_ , William tried desperately to regain his composure. He forced himself to find words, to speak.

"Nothing on under your nightgown?" he swallowed and scratched out the question, his raspy degree of arousal blatant, bringing a curve to the edges of Julia's lips.

"I would have thought with your sharp detective's mind you would have noticed. Rarely, do I wear more than this to bed these days," she informed him, her breath now in his ear, so intimate, so close. Julia's fingers scratched into his hair, tingled and seductively caught and glanced over his ears. "Knowing you, detective, that is probably how you seem to know… that time of the month." Finally, her mouth on him, tasting him, loving him, tugging him into her whirlwind.

Somehow, he had managed it, William had mustered a solidness that would allow him to resist, to milk and exploit all there could be out of the experience, to extend the tension, the pull, the lovely, lovely pressure, between them. And thus, he had achieved an air of cockiness as he teased her, "Oh doctor, there are so very many ways I know when it is that time of the month…" It would be the listing of them that would tweak her, irk her, and he reveled in the showing them off, "Your amorous mood, delightfully ravenous, really…"

A part of her wanted to shove him for the brash remark, but he was right. And she was feeling that way right this second, and all she wanted to do was _touch him…_

"Your crabby mood… and your heightened sense of smell… I'd say, Wednesday, or perhaps Thursday," he bragged.

Annoyingly, he was correct in his prediction, of course. "Perhaps," was all she gave on the topic.

Reaching down in her lustful explorations of his body, Julia arrived at the convenience flap in his pajamas. _Oh, she could have some fun with this._ William had become magnificently aroused. _She was surprised he hadn't burst out of it already,_ she nearly giggled. Mischievous at heart, she would play with him. "William," she fought hard not to giggle, "You seem to have a hole in your pajamas."

She took in that glorious look of him, William's jaw locking tight, the sheer handsomeness of him completely overwhelming when he gets like this, highly intense, about to pounce. _Oh, she was killing him and she knew it, and he was fighting the fall with all his might._ She pushed back a bit, to be able to see 'the hole.' "Oh…" she said, _or groaned, he would never be quite sure for his brain had become soup,_ "I quite like it."

 _Absolute yielding, giving in, collapsing of every stitch of resolve,_ when she reached in and took him in hand. _He was simply gone._

"Yes, I most definitely like it," she said as she utterly rocked his world, rubbing and squeezing, and she herself felt a magnificent hot weakening begin to flow, torrenting, through her body as he grew enticingly more and more ready.

 _They both knew it, they were too close to the point of unbearable resistance. They would have to…_

It took just the tiniest of noises to tumble them. Julia's womb had throbbed so tight with an uncontrollable wrench that the agony of it escaped as a moan, barely audible, almost just a breath, or a whimper, but it flung them over the edge. The tempo exploded into a flurry – hands, mouths, tongues, hearts pounding, breaths hot and gushing. His hands so rough on her hips lifting her, pulling her close to his stomach, bringing her inline. The rupture, the breach, surely so luscious neither of them would survive its sweetness.

Closer to her, nearer and nearer, higher, further, filling her. And then the pumping, her from above, him from below, pushing them, pulling them, closer and closer, again, again, again.

"William," Julia cried out his name, "Don't stop. Please, don't stop."

 _Oh he gave her everything_ , pounding and ramming, but _not close enough_. He wanted more.

 _ **Whoosh**_ , William swept her off her feet – up – so fast – so high – and then the spin. Julia clung to him with all her might. THUD, Julia's back banged against the wall by their bedroom door. Not a moment for her to grasp what had happened, where she was, what he was doing to her, William thundered making love to her wildly, savagely, sending her flying, so high, each thrust getting closer, closer…

"William," she gasped, so desperate, "It's… It's going to be… It's… It's… so…"

He raced towards her most precious spot, everything in all the world falling to the wayside with his urgency, his excruciating need, to add his inertia to hers, to reach the ultimate crescendo as one " _Almost there…"_ he stormed, with absolutely everything he had, to her.

"William," _the way she said it_ … pure euphoria, the first humungous wave hovering, just about to sweep her up. It tugged him to implosion, so delicious.

"Julia," William scratched out with one of his last exerted grunts, with his forward, deepening, thrust, harmonized with her gushing exhale, perfectly synchronized, he pumped only a few more precious times, with each of them Julia's gasped and groaned breaths, just… a… few… times… more, each thrust longer, slower, _praying for the lusciousness to never, never end, please, please, just one more drop…_

Tears in her eyes, she barely whispered, "You feel so gooood."

And he kissed her, her ear, her neck, her cheek, her ear again. "I love you, Julia," his rough voice somehow inside of her as much as out.

Her brain the only part of her able to answer him in her head, responded, " _Such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man."_

The rushed swirling, impossible to tell for it was all around, in and out, up and down, now and forever, before it passed, all the while the couple remaining bonded, waiting, together.

Noticing a dampness in William's short, black hair as her fingers fiddled and caressed through it, thinking it was sweat, Julia reminded herself that _he had showered_ , that thought linking to remembering that _he had worked late_ , and then to remembering _the case – the cases_ , and then, with a deeper vibration of importance, _his strange turning away, his outright avoidance of making love this morning,_ and the thought crossed her mind that _maybe whatever was bothering him this morning was resolved, but the psychotherapist in her knew, knew that it was not…_

She would bathe him in her admiring of his sexual prowess, however, _for he had been magnificent_. "Oh my, William, that was incredibly good," she declared with a few nuzzled kisses along the edges of his ear. Julia was wholly satisfied to bask there, her heart glowing with love for him.

William chuckled, and, voice still dry and somewhat out of breath, he joked, "I suppose I was not TOO TIRED after all." _He considered trumpeting his success at overcoming whatever sexual block he had had this morning as well, but immediately decided it would be best not to jinx it, so held his tongue._

"You are more than tired now, though," she gave him a mischievous nudge, the first step in separating after their intense lovemaking. She took a deep breath, "You did well to take my doctorly advice, detective. Washed and fed, and now thoroughly loved…" her hand tenderly cupped his cheek, "you will sleep better. Even more so, because your wife, Mr. Murdoch, intends to love you even more…" She pushed him back another step. _Through the fuzzy softness of his pajama top she ran her hands up his ribs, over his pectoral muscles, caught the little poking-up of his nipples through the material, thinking to herself as she did so, that he was a prime specimen of manliness_. "Take off your top…"

 _Zing – William felt that creepy intrusion, a chilled cold sweat, threatening once again…_

"You are going to get a massage," Julia had gone on, "It will be a sort of Ishinpō in reverse," she softly giggled.

"Oh… No, Julia. That's alright…" William started to protest.

"William," she took a firm hold of his shoulders and shook him playfully, bringing his beautiful chocolate eyes to hers, "I want to make you feel good. Please, just let me take care of you."

"I already feel good," he gave with a smile, her charm winning him over, the unnerving feelings dissipated, his warm satisfaction and thorough physical exhaustion setting in.

"And you will feel even better…" Julia continued to insist, walking over to his side of their bed and pulling down the covers for him. "Here," she said, "What a delightful way to fall asleep, with your lovely, and experienced wife rubbing all the tension and soreness out of those hunky, strong muscles, knowing exactly the best spots to focus on, all those origins and insertions…"

William had given in. _Truth be told, it sounded great_. He unbuttoned his pajama top as he walked over to the bed.

"Let's start with you lying on your back," she instructed. After William lay down, Julia turned out the light. _It would be easier for him to fall asleep with it off_. Besides, she knew anatomy better than just about anyone else, and even more so, she knew William's anatomy by heart. She certainly did not need the light. Julia straddled herself across his stomach and began.

Wise, and now well trained, thanks to William, in the art of Ishinpō, she started with her touch on his head, stroked down his hair, _so lovingly, firm and also seemingly soaking up the feel of him_ , _highly attentive,_ then spread her fingers wider over his scalp and increased the pressure to massage the tension out of his head, mending the soreness out of that forehead that he himself rubbed so often, then softer again to go squeeze and stroke his ears, down his cheeks, and his jawline, to his chin… a momentary lifting away before a gentle sweeping excursion up his pectoral muscles to ride up to the big chest muscles' origins under the bottom of his clavicles. Once she had reached the beginning of the strong muscles, she reversed direction, pressing in with more force, and her expert fingers nudged the tenseness out along their entire length of those bulging muscles, eliciting a delicious moan from him. _He could not see it, but my goodness did his obvious pleasure make her smile._ After a few more, deeper and deeper, rubs of pectorals, she started with his hunky trapezius muscles up on the top of each of his clavicles. Searching the muscles' origins, Julia tucked her fingers in under the back of his neck, slipped in just at the base of his hairline at the back of his neck…

"Mmm," he moaned out the pleasure…

As she rubbed down the tight, tense muscles from where they began at the base of his skull out to his shoulders.

William's voice was scratchy as he told her, "That left one's been stabbing at me all day."

"Mmm," she answered him in the darkness, leaning in and giving him a sweet kiss at his ear. Under her breath she told him what came to her mind, "It's your old injury, the meat-hook wound."

Careful not to change the quality of her massaging, not wanting to stir-up his own memories of the past trauma, her brain flashed her the image of her first seeing that injury, the morning after it had happened, the two of them together in the laundry cupboard. _At the time she had not known it had been caused by something as horrific as his hanging from a meat-hook, naked and gagged and wrapped in burlap after being bonked on the head and chloroformed…_ Her mind dug deeper, thinking of what it must have been like for him, " _to become conscious to that excruciating pain, in the cold and the pitch black and the stench of the slaughterhouse, one among many in a line of pig carcasses dangling from the ceiling, helplessly hanging there waiting for the morning to come and the machine to be switched on and then to be sliced in half by a huge rotary saw…"_ She shoved the thoughts away, took a deep breath, all the while keeping up the smooth massaging. Another deep breath. To comfort herself, her mind reminded that he was here with her, safe and sound, he had come home back then, they had ended up huddled together in the laundry room after she had discovered his reeking suit in the laundry bag. He had a cut on his lip, and she knew there was more, had asked him to show her. He had been to the hospital, so it had been stitched up, thus she never saw the wound at its worst. " _It must have been so awful,"_ her last thought on the matter.

Done with his trapezius muscles, time for the deltoids.

Not another word was spoken between them. Julia had made it so far as rubbing out his upper arms, first his deltoids, then his biceps, before his deep, slow breathing affirmed her suspicions that William had fallen asleep. One more kiss, and she slipped herself down next to him, tucked under the covers, pushed her pillow to its comfortable spot, and then offered herself to sleep as well.

 **Smokiness in the air, for the cold's so bitter that the breath makes fog, and the dankness, the odors, so rank and dense that sounds are amplified, and oddly slowed.** _ **Something about it not right**_ **, the surety of it rendering dizziness, panic, shamefully vulnerable. Being watched – I can feel it – so many eyes, wide, aimed at me. From behind, a sickening warmth, rhythmical putridity of the breaths.** _ **Those shiny black boots, on the dirt-floor behind me.**_ **I'll fight! So many of them! Stabbing pain atop of shoulder –** _ **you're weak, injured… Perhaps best not to…**_ **Hands on me –** _ **too large, not real. Can't be happening!**_ **Feeling through my clothes to my body. Disgusting – vile. That voice, snakelike, venomous…**

" **Take off your shirt."**

 **I am certain I will not.** _ **The loudest noise I've ever heard**_ **– the gun cocking. "** _ **George!**_ **" the terror so extreme I'm unaware if I said it in my head or screamed it out loud, all I can see is the barrel shoved into the feathery blackness of his hair.** _ **Buttons William – undo the buttons**_ **. Hurry.** _ **Skin so cold. What's stopping me from getting it off…? Sleeves, undo the sleeves…**_

 **Vomitous,** _ **he's… what the hell is he…**_ **squeezing and rubbing at my muscles, on my chest, on my stomach, his breath so vilely hot in my ear,** _ **so disgusting I'll puke.**_ **His body hard against my backside** _ **. Nothing I can do. Helpless. Helpless.**_

 **Suddenly, he flees, and then so quickly, he's under me. Finally I can release my rage.** _ **Wild, knuckle-cracking sweetness**_ **each time my fist lands on his face.**

" **All right! All right!"** _ **it's James Gillies voice**_ **calling the truce. "You got me. Stop hitting me. You won."**

 **No need any longer for me to be the brute,** _ **so out of breath**_ **from the anger and the fear.**

 _ **Puzzling**_ **as he says it to me, and there's a smirk, and** _ **I don't understand**_ **…**

" **This is it for us. Doesn't that make you just a little bit sad?**

 _ **No**_ **.**

 **Not even a teensy bit?**

 _ **I'm certain it does not. I'm glad it's over.**_

" **Come now, Detective. You and I share something. Something special. I'll miss you. You know that."**

 _ **HIS LIPS ON MINE!**_ **Argh!** _ **He's kissing me! Get off me.**_ **Ugh.**

 **He's going to escape… He's getting away!** _ **So strange, could it be Sally now?**_

 _ **Distracted, pulled away, enabling the escape for certain**_ **, a whisper smothered in foul cigarette stink –** _ **Guillaume**_ **… "Au début Mr. Murdoch, je pensais qu'il avait ta femme, but now it seems the cat has your tongue."**

 _ **What cat?**_ **Such a spin to look fast enough. Nausea instantly, GIANT, the pink-dyed lion, out of its cage, loose, wild, free, escaped.** _ **We'll have to catch it – so dangerous**_ **! The giant lion is tossing something back and forth between its humungous paws, playing with it…** _ **What is it?**_ **My God,** _ **look at those razor-sharp claws**_ **– inches long…** _ **It's some sort of meat, looks like a tongue – MY TONGUE!**_ _ **Going to bite it!**_

 **The CRUNCH so piercingly disgusting inside my head.**

 **NO! NO! Devastating, the sound of my own voice, muted screams, sounds, noises, unidentifiable except for the anguish, volume without meaning, no words.**

 _ **Can't speak without a tongue – no tongue!**_

 **The sobbing shook and shook and shook.**

Julia was nudging him, shaking him softly. "William. William honey, wake up," she urged.

 _I'm in bed with her_ , cold sweat, so sick in the stomach, William became awake to where he was, to the present moment, to the fact that all that had just happened was not real. He felt his own face wrinkled up with distaste and pain, remaining so close to the experiences he had had just before.

"You had a bad dream," she told him as he himself realized it. "You're safe. Everything's alright, hmm?" she reassured him, her hand cupping his head, her voice so close in the dark.

He took a breath, she heard it was deeper, _he was there with her_. "Shh," she shushed him, rubbing tenderly into his hair, "Shh." But then she surprised herself, for she advised him, guided him, "Try to remember it," she coached him to chase after the dream. And with that Julia found herself wondering at herself, arriving at the memory of him being aversive to her sexual advances the morning before, and remembering her decision that whatever was bothering him had yet to be resolved.

William's memory was powerful and quick, and he would do anything for Julia. Running backwards, he caught flashes…

*The pink lion had my tongue, I couldn't speak.

*Guillaume had been the one to tell me.

*I had been chasing someone and caught them – beating them ruthlessly… Gillies, the man had turned into Gillies.

 _*Who was it before that?_ he tried to remember. _Oh, this part was fleeting_.

* _In a barn… In danger, many men had captured us. George with a gun to his head_ … And then William remembered – HE KNEW! The repugnance of it so insufferable he rejected it with a jolt. Sat up in bed, swung his feet to the floor. Intolerable to stay there where it had just happened. So badly, he did not want to remember it. The cold air on his dampened skin, and with it an abrupt emergency to having his shirt off. In a tizzy he hunted his pajama top in the dark.

Julia threw off the covers and climbed over the mattress to jump up next to him. "Hey," she encouraged, but her mind was racing. _He was obviously upset_. She clicked on the light, the red pajama top suddenly in sight, he grabbed it. _There was immense pressure to help him, to ease it all for him._

Standing now, so quickly, in such a rush, he shoved his arm into the first sleeve. Julia reached out to help, holding the other side of the pajama top up and out to make it easier, faster, for him to get his other arm in the sleeve. She straightened out the front sections and hurried to begin buttoning it for him. She tried to mirror calming down for him, took a deep breath, but impatient herself, said, "Breathe William." She caught his eyes, so gorgeous and distraught, the look tugged at her heart.

She made herself breathe again. Finished with his buttons, then she cupped his cheeks in her hands. She told him, her own voice impressing herself with its strength and its warmth, as her thumbs soothed across his cheeks, "We'll figure it out, William. It will be alright, whatever it is. Hot chocolate…" she smiled, still feeling her heart thundering against her chest, "You know it can cure anything, hmm?" she asked him.

Wonderfully warm, the float for a second, when he smiled back and nodded. Trying, William was trying. He took the wished for deep breath.

)

William and Julia talked it all through down in the kitchen after his nightmare – over two warm, sweet cups of hot chocolate. There were layers and layers and layers to his dream, circling, spiraling in deeper and deeper. He had been troubled by Guillaume, and all the other men blocking his investigation into Sally and Catfrey and their likely stealing of the Pink Panther Diamond. He had been forced to let them get away, had been in a sense 'silenced,' and it had triggered memories that had shown up in his dream of many other times when badguys had gotten away, Gillies and Sally particularly, and now Catfrey, and Sally for a second time. But there was another badguy that had returned to haunt William, another evil character that had gotten away, and this one had violated William so badly that the emotional scar still ached and tormented him – Flannel Bull, the wretched American policeman who had corrupted his men into helping him obtain male victims for his own sexual perversions, William having been one, George's life the ransom used to ensure William's lack of resistance.

It was Guillaume, in the dream – linking all these things in a way, particularly William's past traumatic victimization with the present Pink Panther Diamond case. Julia had figured it out, so hidden from William that he likely would not have grasped it – but it was Guillaume. In the dream Guillaume had spoken in French, and Julia had asked William to think back to their conversation upstairs in the bedroom after Marcel and Angelique had left that night that he had forgotten to tell her he had invited them. Even in her asking William about it, Julia using Marcel's first name in her question, she remembered noticing William flinching whenever she had called Inspector Guillaume 'Marcel' when they first addressed his reluctance and avoidance of making love with her that next morning, giving her even more evidence that her suspicions were right. William remembered, not unsurprisingly, the conversation to its minutest details.

Julia started in the middle of his nightmare, aware that the hardest part of the dream was in the beginning, she planned to start where he could handle it and take him to the easier to accept ending, thus, building him up first. She knew William Murdoch, discovery, any discovery, intrigued him. It was one of the main things about him she fell in love with. She had found she loved him even more when the discovery he ventured on with her was self-discovery, for it was a much more rich and potent journey than those that were more intellectual, and he was ripe for it now.

She lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip, catching his chocolaty eyes over its rim. "William," her tone signaled the start, "Gillies was in your dream…"

He nodded, answering her, "James Gillies, on the train tracks that night after he escaped from the train to Kingston and I caught him…"

Julia waited, wanting him to say it out loud, her anticipation prevalent on her face, indicating and pushing him – _there was more_.

"When he kissed me…" William gave with his voice weakening, scratching with the stress of the truth of it.

"And it distracted you, hmm, his kissing you like that?" she pointed the direction.

William nodded, his face glued to hers.

"Gillies took advantage of that, of your shock and disgust, to escape?" she added, taking another sip.

"Yes," William's mouth wrinkled at a corner, admitting it. Needing the warm chocolate to soothe his discomfort, William too took a sip.

Julia's expression grew pensive, the change drawing him, tugging at his curiosity. "What distracted you, after Gillies kissed you in your dream, and you were about to chase after him?" she wondered, _knowing exactly where the question would lead him, right to the keystone, the connecting point._

"Guillaume…" he whispered, his tone confused and somewhat dazed, "In French," he added. He looked to her, thinking he had given enough. She saw worry cross his face upon recognizing that she expected more.

"What did he say, exactly, in the dream?" she guided him. With his memory, she anticipated that this would be an exact quote.

A quick nod, he answered, "Au début Mr. Murdoch, je pensais qu'il avait ta femme, but now it seems the cat has your tongue."

"And what does that mean – in English?" she wanted to be sure.

"At first Mr. Murdoch, I thought he had your wife…" he interpreted, then finishing up the English part to complete the thought, "but now it seems the cat has your tongue."

"Who do you think ' _the cat'_ was William?" Julia's interest magnified his own natural drive to discover, in this case, to discover more about himself.

"Catfrey," his answer was quick.

"Because Catfrey's name has the word 'CAT' in it, and because Neil Catfrey had your wife, at the Ball?" she offered, _amazed there was still a rawness to it._

"Yes," his answer was simple and direct.

This part would be more tricky, she knew. Her hesitation alerted William to its significance, before she asked, "And, who else had you worried about recently, who else did you think might have ' _had your wife_?' Think back to our conversation that night, before you… Remember, you told me that you had had a bad dream, when we talked in the morgue, um, about your turning away from my seductions the morning after Marcel and Angelique's visit." She honed the search, "Anything in our conversation that night?" She zoomed in further, "Perhaps something in French?"

" _Risqué!_ " the word hit his brain with a whack. "I had thought Marcel had been too risqué!" he remembered aloud, his tone brightening with the solution. Quick though, William Murdoch's brain, and with Julia merely nodding, figured out that their ultimate shared discovery had not yet been reached… The next remembered words out of his mouth before he was aware of their presence, "Ménage à trois…" Rapidly, his brain worked the puzzle, " _Julia was right, there were French words in our discussion, but what was her point? Why were these words in French so important?"_ William's eyes widened with his discovery, finding a solution always such a prize for him, even when it resulted in finding a troubling jigsaw piece. "Guillaume… both that night and in my dream," he said it under his breath, the awareness still just above a secret.

Julia would elaborate, say what he could not, take the puzzle piece and press it into place more solidly. She explained, "You worried that Marcel had enticed me into having a ménage à trois with him and Angelique…"

William nodded. It was true.

"And then later, he stood in the way of your of calling Sally Pendrick and Catfrey out on their crimes… by convincing the Inspector and Meyers and even Alan Clegg to block your investigation. In a sense William, Marcel Guillaume had taken your tongue away from you. Do you see? And so, Guillaume had, at first, gotten your wife, and then he had gotten your tongue… as, of course, Catfrey had also done, first me at the Ball and then escaping with the diamond and you unable to stop it because of Guillaume."

He nodded, lighter and more absorbed at the same time, "Astounding, so much in a dream."

Julia's smile trumpeted the marvels of psychotherapy and her happiness with its ability to enlighten once more, especially when it helped enlighten this man who she loved so much.

"Yes, William, it truly is," she agreed.

She took a deep breath. They had gone from the center of the dream to its end, outward. It was time now, to go from its center to the beginning, inward, into the monster's lair. "There's much more really," she hinted at the danger, "I used some French words too, after your own 'risqué' and 'ménage à trois,' that night. Do you remember…" very well knowing that he did, "what I suggested, about Marcel's thoughts on you during our conversation that night?"

William's expression changed as the words re-appeared in his mind, " _a ménage à quatre!_ " with a rip of torment, _unreasonable that it would confound and hurt so much…_

Julia would wait him out, insist that he be the one to say it.

"You said… um, that Marcel was more interested in a ménage à quatre, because he was intrigued by me," William bravely explained.

"And how did that make you feel?" came the typical psychiatrist's question.

A deep breath, he would try. "Bothered… Disgusting, and shocked, and…" _Oh my, this one surprised him_ , "betrayed," he replied.

"And did it remind you…" her eyes deepened into his, not to examine him or to pierce into him, but rather to cover him and support him, to promise him that it would be alright, that he would not be alone. She went on, "of any other times, times that were similar in some ways – a man making sexual advances?"

"Gillies," William answered quickly, "When he kissed me."

"Yes," Julia agreed. " _Not surprising,"_ she thought to herself, _"he went for the easier memory, the one he had already encountered consciously, his instincts still guarding against disturbing the lower, more sensitive wound._

"Any others. Any other times, a man… sexually… handled you?" Julia went on, her choice of her words precise, targeted. Her voice vibrated with a tone both more assuring and calming as she dug, "Perhaps Marcel's interests reminded you of a time that affected you on a much more painful level? Wasn't there someone before James Gillies – in your dream, in that strange way dreams can defy logic? Wasn't there someone else, first, who changed into Gillies?"

 _She watched William swallow, her heart aching for him, such a lure in his eyes, pleading._ Julia's focus became strong, her love for him, her confidence in knowing the way to help, the only true way, driving her strength. Her mind added fuel to the fire, and she said it to him, predicting it might push him through his defenses, "Yes, Marcel's sexual interest in you reminded you of James Gillies' disturbing kiss, and that showed up tonight in your dream," she gave, grounding him on what had been accomplished, then adding more, "And do you remember that night Marcel and Angelique visited, that all night long, from once you had joined us until they left, I remember it was incessantly, Marcel and Angelique pressured you to show them your Halloween costume? And you sensed it, William – I know you did, they each wanted to see you in your costume as much as they did precisely because they knew the King Neptune costume would be revealing – that you would be shirtless, William, and they would be able to see your body…"

 _There was the nausea again, so sickening, in his core. William's face clenched with the bad taste in his mouth and the sickening stirrings of his helplessness percolated a cold sweaty chill up the back of his neck, tingling and numbing his scalp, like all the blood was draining out of him somehow._

There was a mystery and magic, almost, to Julia's support then. She lowered her voice, in volume and in pitch, leaned closer from around the corner of their kitchen table to him. Her presence, her trust in him, and her faith in his trust in her, forceful, fierce, in the face of adversity. William's beautiful eyes holding to hers, as if for dear life, she went on, "Marcel's sexual interest in you had triggered memories of times men had made sexual advances to you, unwanted sexual advances. It happened with Gillies, did I not?"

He nodded, his dark, brown, beautiful eyes never dropping away, the honesty between them poignant.

She would venture to the darkest place now, she already saw he was so close, but found himself at a loss. "And one such time was when you had had the misfortune to cross paths with that power-abusing American policeman…"

"Flannel Bull," with such repugnance of the feel of the name in his mouth, William named him.

"Yes," she gave, a sense of relief, for he had gotten there now. "He was in your dream?" she coached him forward.

"He was," William accepted it, bearable somehow now, "Those were his boots behind me, him touching my body, him telling me to take off my shirt…" It poked, remembering the man's voice in his ear. William's expression grew more desperate, "His men who restrained me… who threatened to shoot George in the head."

"And while that was happening, you felt…" she led.

"Furious," William's jaws and fists clenched.

"Because you were made to feel…" a bit more…

"Helpless, Julia," and there were those telltale pools glistening in his eyes, "I felt helpless, unable to fight, unable to protect myself, or George." She nodded, he was not alone. "I was so ashamed…" the nausea peaking, _perhaps he couldn't…_

Her blue eyes promised it would be alright and he shoved with all his might. "Why was I so stupid?" his self-reprimanded battering exploded. "Such an idiot to get us into that situation…"

She would stop the fall. "William, you did nothing to cause that. You could not have known such a thing would happen, that such a horrible man would show up. Only he is to blame, him and his men who went along. Surely you see that?"

"But, I risked George…" he pleaded his most guilty part.

"As I remember, George insisted on going with you on this undercover hobo trip to Winnipeg, to help you solve the case. He wanted to go with you, to share in your exciting undercover plan. You did not risk George. George risked himself, through loyalty and love and devotion to you, William, and to the job… He would have had it no other way. And I for one was glad of it," she held firm, remembering her own terror at William going undercover as a homeless vagrant, a hobo, to ride the trains in search of a vicious killer, someone in the treacherous meatpacking industry, and matters had been made only worse after William had had such a horrific experience, nearly costing him his life, at the slaughterhouse, his being slung up on a meat-hook on a ceiling hoist, set to be sliced in half like a pig carcass.

A deep breath, she changed her tactic. "What Flannel Bull did to you hurt you terribly, William. Such an injury heals, yet each time the wound is re-opened it cuts with a sting, but each time the sting is less. This thing with Marcel, it reopened that wound. But you're stronger for it. Does it feel that way to you?" she asked him sincerely.

" _It did,"_ he heard his own voice in his head, and it emboldened him. He nodded.

"Good," she smiled, and heard herself exhale, breathing easier. The sound prompted her to wrinkle a corner of her mouth at him, to admit to him that it had been hard… hard for her too.

And that acknowledgement only warmed him more, settled and soothed his soul more profoundly. William had known it from the first moment he had met her, he would never be alone again.

"Good," he nodded to her.

The cups were empty, yet the couple remained in the coziness of the kitchen for a time. Julia moved her chair closer to the corner, slipped her fingers into his hair. Minds wandered. Soon, she asked him, curious, "Were there no other times, William… when a man made sexual advances towards you?"

His memory sharp, a time popped to mind instantly. He took her hand and brought it down onto the table to hold their clasped hands between them. Julia's fingers rubbed and cherished the feeling of his wedding ring. William told her about the time he went undercover, dressed in a ridiculous velvet suit, complete with a pansy and an 'Oscar Wilde' hat… _So sweet to his ears, Julia's giggle, as he retold the story._ "It was on that case that you yelled at me so adamantly, about why God would give us such urges if he didn't want us to act on them…"

"Yes, and you said it was to test their resolve," she remembered her anger, _now finding it was so highly peppered with love and a dose of humor._

He took a deep breath, for he had struggled at the time. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth, melting her, and went on, "I did, find myself in such a situation as you wondered about," he admitted. "A man there found me attractive…"

Julia's brain piped in, " _Every man there found you attractive, William!"_

William braved the details, telling, "At one point he put his hand on my knee. Of course, I was horrified…"

"Of course," Julia said, her voice ringing with the superiority she could sometimes feel.

William decided to ignore it and went on, "He said I was shaking. He got so excited…" William remembered the panic he had felt, "Said to me that he could tell I had never done this before…"

"I see," Julia still sounded judgmental. "And did you end up getting what you wanted from the man?" she asked.

A wave of guilt wafted through him, seeing a flash in his mind of the innocent man with a black eye from the Inspector's abuse. William's face wrinkled, showing her his regret. "Yes," he answered, "In the end."

Julia leaned back a bit into her chair and commented, "So detective, you are willing to use your sexual attractiveness to men to your advantage, it seems. Interesting however, not so with women…"

William frowned, tickling Julia sufficiently that she had to repress her giggle.

"Why do you think that is?" she pushed him.

He was willing, willing to consider it, after he decided that she was right, and when he thought about it, it was odd, that he had been willing to use his good-looks in that instance, but not so in others. "Perhaps it's because it could not possibly be true with men… my being interested, but it could be possible…" he found he needed to clear his throat, then went on, "My being interested with a woman." _Endearing,_ he gave her his admitting-it wrinkle.

"I see," she responded.

A brief lull, and Julia noted to herself that William seemed better now.

His mind had gone the same way.

"Thank you, Julia," he said, bringing them back to the subject of his dream and his having been troubled.

"You feel better?" she asked, wanting to intensify their connection.

"I do," he answered, taking her hand in both of his. "But I must admit, I don't wholly understand why?" he wondered.

Her answer was straightforward, "Because you were doing it backwards" she said.

Curious, he questioned, "Backwards?"

"Yes," she leaned closer, her voice lowered, for she would reveal the secret, "The saying is to 'forgive and forget,' William, but you were trying to 'forget and forgive.' It can't possibly work that way."

"Wise," he glowed, "You never cease to amaze me, Julia," he vowed.

"Nor you I," she returned. Julia tilted to him and kissed him. "Bed?" she suggested.

"Good," he said, standing and helping her up. There was such a lightness in him, he noticed the weight of his burden gone now.

As they walked up the stairs, William planned out the next day. His speech was rapid, bubbly and energetic with his newfound buoyancy. Arm in arm he told her that he wanted to check the booby-trap up at the Body Farm, or at the very least place a phone call to Jake and check in with him about it. And he intended to go full steam ahead on the home-invasion robbery case. A major focus would be finding possible locations the robber could be using as his hideout for the listening device receiver. They would have to hurry, for the Howell's party was only a day away now. Oh, and he was pleased with the various decorative devices he had put together for their Halloween party. He had made quite a few various machines that would beam kaleidoscopes of glowing fishes of all sorts across their walls and another that would randomly send up a series of bubbles. Proudly, he told her that they would enhance the sea décor she had planned to go with their King Neptune, Queen Salacia and Prince Triton costumes. She interjected that his pop-up monster was going to be the highlight of every guest's and every Trick-or-Treater's Halloween alike. Excitedly, William added, changing the subject once more, that he had been thinking, and, even though he was officially off the Pink Panther Diamond case, he intended to have a constable specifically keep an eye on Sally at Thurston Howell 's, and his wife, Lovey Howell's Howell-oween Bash, for most assuredly, from there, Sally would sneak away to take her leave of Toronto and go to Catfrey. And then he arrived at something that had been niggling at him in the back of his mind for a while now. "Still, I find myself wondering, why hasn't Neil Catfrey tried to contact Sally – there have been no phone calls or passed notes. Catfrey would have no way of knowing that Sally never received the note that was left for me. Wouldn't he have tried to let her know he had made the train after leaving in such a rush to get away?"

William clicked off the lamp, for they were in bed now.

In the darkness, Julia teased him, hinting that his vibrant enthusiasm and ceaseless chatter were keeping her from sleep, "I see the cat most assuredly no longer has your tongue, detective," and then he wallowed so deliciously in her hug. "Goodnight, William," she whispered, and then kissed him.

"Goodnight, Julia," he whispered back. "Sweet dreams," he added, thinking to himself that thanks to her, his would be. He tucked her into her place, her head nestled down on his chest. _Perhaps he would massage her for a bit,_ he thought… His last thought, before his own cathartic exhaustion soaked and drenched into each and every one of his cells and dropped him off to sleep right behind her.

)) ((


	13. 13: BlackCats Crossed Paths of FishesT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 13: The Night the Black Cats Crossed Paths with the Fishes_T

All of a sudden William remembered to tell her just as she was about to leave his office. "Oh, Julia!" There was excitement in his voice. "Tell me you don't think this is quite ironic…"

She turned back, and he helped her put her arm into her coat sleeve.

"Jake Castern called…" William started to tell his story.

"Is everything alright at the Body Farm?" she worried.

"No. No, everything's fine. But…" William helped straighten out her coat lapels and found his body reacting to being so close to hers, "Well, it is Halloween…."

"Yes…" _Julia felt the romantic sparks too._

 _There was one of those delectable curls just dangling there._

William went on, glee in his voice, leading up to his punch-line, he added, "And we haven't had any phone calls about the booby-trap having been set off since that Gazette reporter got caught in it…"

"Mm-hmm," she stepped closer, _wishing he would take the curl in hand, her whole body tingling with the possibility._

 _He did_ , squeezed and twirled it in his fingers, _so close to her ear she could hear the rough crinkling of the strands rolling together within his grasp._ Then William's fingers slid up her cheek to tuck back behind her ear, and he played so deliciously with her ear with his thumb, _and she felt that wonderful dizziness swooping in._

 _He was forgetting his story – forgetting his point – forgetting how words even worked…_

He kissed her, somehow not even aware that the blinds were up on his office windows, and that the entire Constabulary would probably see.

There was a sound… stopping their kiss.

" _George's phone_ ," their thoughts each quickly offered the explanation.

But, already, they had separated.

"You were saying," Julia giggled.

 _Only a blank at first…_

"Something ironic, about Jake at the body farm?" she led him back.

"Oh!" he remembered, "Oh yes. The booby-trap was triggered this morning…" William's eyes sparkled and glistened raising her anticipation.

"It was a black cat!" William gleamed, "A black cat, of all things, on Halloween, that got caught in the net up in the tree."

"Oh my," Julia exclaimed, "That is quite a coincidence."

"I wonder what it portends about our party?" William queried aloud.

"Only good things, I'm sure," Julia replied, cupping his cheek. Her gloved hand reminding him that she had been taking her leave. "Although…" her tone was delightfully mischievous, "It is a Friday… And the date is today thirteen reversed – 31."

She giggled at his frown.

"I'll be home soon," he offered as he ushered her to his door. William's phone rang, likely the call had been redirected by Crabtree…

Stepping back into the bullpen, Julia remembered that she had heard them on her way in, despite George's effort to hide it from her the moment she had appeared. The men, the constables, and she figured the Inspector was taking part as well, they were all betting on something, and Julia figured it was about whether or not William would keep his promise to her – to stay and host their own Halloween party with her tonight, or would he, instead, yield to his need to be in control of the case, to be there – at the Howell's 'Howell-oween Bash' in person. She sighed to herself, grateful she had caught William alone in his office to bid him farewell, to remind him that she was leaving early to ready the party with the caterers and the decorations, and to appeal to his fatherly instincts, encouraging him to come home early himself, so he could join her in taking their nearly two-year-old little boy out for his first Trick-or-Treating adventure.

Higgins stashed the papers, _and she caught sight of a few bills too_ , into the top drawer of his desk in a rush as Julia closed William's office door behind her and finished buttoning up her coat. All conversation halted abruptly, and not an eye was on her, albeit for each constable's peripheral scope. Thus, none of them could see what would have warned William in an instant – Julia's Mona-Lisa-smile.

"How much does it cost to get in on the action, gentlemen?" she asked, knowing she was awful and cruel, knowing that it would cause them stress, "I assume the odds favor William showing up at the Riverdale Zoo this evening…"

"Uhhhh…"

 _It is interesting how hesitation and panic sound so noticeable when muttered by three different constables all at once._

An audible, "hmm," escaped as Julia's smile curled even further up on her lips and then abruptly straightened to allow her to better play her role. "Well, I hope so in this case. I'd like to wager in **favor** of my husband," she told them. "Is a dollar sufficient to get in the game?"

In unison George and Henry responded in opposites…

George placating, "Of course doctor…"

And Henry quibbling, "So far the lowest bet is two dollars."

"Oh, I see," Julia replied, digging into her purse and pulling out five dollars.

Henry opened the desk drawer and brought out the papers to record her bet.

"And the odds?" Julia asked, handing Henry the money.

"Well doctor," Henry peered down at his scribbles. _It was a delaying tactic, he already knew the odds exactly…_

George interrupted, "You and I can look forward to making a windfall, Dr. Ogden, if the detective stays at home with you tonight," he said while giving Henry the evil eye.

"Good. Thank you, gentlemen," Julia said and then went on her way, the three constables huddling into a whispered spat before she had even managed to make it out of the stationhouse door. The only thing she could make out from their discussion was George's scolding, "The doctor doesn't need to know how skeptical you all are of the detective…"

…and then Whitehall's quip, "But really, twenty-to-one…"

She did the math in her head, " _A hundred dollars!"_ she thought eagerly, and then suffered a pang of guilt, for these men did not have all that much money. She turned back.

"Actually constables…" Dr. Ogden's voice called their attention, breaking up their impromptu squabble. "William did seem to be quite invested in his maps…" she paused, "Um, maps of the listening device receiver radius around the Riverdale Zoo, I believe…" she flicked her chin up into the air pointing in the direction of her husband on the other side of his office windows, all three of the men turning to see the detective scribbling notes, and flipping from one map to another while talking agitatedly on the phone. Julia continued, "Um… just now. Perhaps I'd best change my bet. Would you allow me to wager just one dollar?"

Henry winked at Whitehall, cocky and rubbing it in, strutting, for he was even more confident that they had chosen the best wager now that the man's wife even doubted him. He returned his gaze to the doctor and replied, "Probably wise doctor. Detective Murdoch got a call from that French Inspector Guillaume a few hours ago, and then he rushed out of here like a barrel out of hel…"

George's gasp and stern stare halted Henry's intended curse in front of a lady.

Straightening out his uniform collar, Henry lowered his voice and explained, "He, um… the detective was ranting under his breath about how Meyers and Clegg were both at each other's throats again and how they were going to ruin both his robbery case and Guillaume's International Pink Panther Diamond case all in one blow. He went all the way over to the Riverdale zoo to handle the matter… Just got back half an hour ago."

"I see," Julia said, exchanging the bills to lower her bet.

As Julia made it to the threshold once more on her way out she was sure she heard Whitehall change his bet...

"Put me down for five dollars instead of two Henry," the third constable said.

"And I'm going to join you on that," Henry gleamed.

" _A fool and his money_ …" Julia thought to herself. So quickly her inner-voice sarcastically offered up, " _Yeah, and I hope you aren't the fool._ "

) (

William walked his bicycle down their front path while forcing himself NOT to look in the direction of the popup monster he had made to "trick" the trick-or-treaters. He was happy, and his analytical mind wrangled with that too. The emotion needed a cause, a reason, and so he hunted for it. His mind flashed an answer, in an image, a fantasy, maybe more a prediction, showing him Julia turning to see him walking in their front door, her face gaping at the surprise of the sight of him there, arriving home early, her face lighting up, and then he knew, his conclusion reached. William Murdoch found his ultimate happiness in making Dr. Julia Ogden happy.

Some would describe William's inventor's smile as 'devilish,' his body not even twitching at the explosion of motion and cackling, once he had triggered his Halloween invention by placing his foot to the first step. _The monster was working perfectly._

Once inside however, it became obvious that his own creativity had been outdone by his wife's. The stunning decorations and the mouthwatering odors hit him with such overwhelming power that he felt his heart might burst. Julia had taken the theme of their Halloween costumes and run with it, transforming their home into a spectacular underwater world with her decorations – fishing nets, strewn seemingly everywhere, were speckled full with red lobsters and myriads of seashells and a full array of starfish and crabs, and there were papier mache fish, and squids, and bright, colorful corals, and seahorses of every size, and jelly fish, and turtles, and even a huge octopus, and all swam about, some dangling from the ceiling, others hung up on the walls, here and there. Placed around on the furniture, and, William noticed with delight that there were even some of them set out on the floors, there were big, treasure chests opened wide, offering guests hors d'oeuvres and Halloween candy…

William Jr. spotted that his father was home as William walked back into the foyer from the living room, his eyes still wide with his amazement of everything Julia had done.

"Daddy!" he gave his warning and ran for his father's arms.

On approach, _William recognized that his son was not yet in his Triton costume_ , as he squatted down to the floor to catch his greeting son.

"Little Man!" he exclaimed, the boy landing with a wallop to be scooped up into his father's arms and lifted up high and laid out flat. The little one knew this game. They would be flying or swimming, and even though he wasn't even really _two-fingers-held-up_ years old yet, he was smart enough to know that, today, it would be swimming.

Claire-Marie's big smile told how much she had come to adore both her charge, and the boy's handsome father. "Oh my," she declared watching them roughhouse and play. "Master Murdoch, you are quite the swimmer," she played along.

"I'm Prince Triton!" the toddler hollered out as if it were obvious.

"Yes, you are," his nanny gave. Claire-Marie's tone dropped down a few octaves as she asked her employer, "Do you think I should change him into his costume now, detective?"

William settled his son back down on the ground and replied, "It seems like a good time to me. Let me find his mother."

"Come, William Jr.," Claire-Marie held out her hand to the boy, "Let's go make you into a fish."

So excited, he hopped half the way to her. "A fast fishy!" he exclaimed.

"Fast indeed," William heard Claire-Marie tell the child as the two of them headed up the stairs. Turning and heading for the kitchen, he remembered the lovely smells that had first hit his nostrils when he stepped in the door. " _My, it smells absolutely delicious. This is really going to be quite some affair,_ " he told himself feeling his pride and excitement growing.

The kitchen was steamy and warm and bustling with activity. Julia was one of four women in the kitchen, but William's eyes found her instantly, hers the first figure he fixed upon, drawn to her by some unknown force. He only had the smallest of moments to reflect, to admire, to cherish her. _She was so very beautiful, that fiery hair, and her contours, and her face… in all his days he had never seen such a beautiful, beautiful woman. Even now, still, after all these years, she sometimes caught him, stole his breath, made his heart skip a beat…_

Her face beaming as she turned to him, having had caught his image out of the corner of her eye, _odd and wonderful, how she had felt him there_ _ **before**_ _she had seen him._ "William!" her volume high, betraying her surprise, she called out, "You're home early!" she marveled.

The other women turned too. _William realized one of them was Eloise._

 _Julia was wearing an apron_ , a part of him awed at the sight of her rushing to him, wiping her hands on it. _There was such a lovely flash – a memory of his mother, for a second, and then it disappeared. So hard, he wanted to hold on to it, but it was gone._

She lowered her voice. Closer now, calmer now, she told him frankly, "I was a bit skeptical…"

William's face wrinkled into his "admitting-it expression," giving away the fact that he, too, knew himself well enough to doubt. _At least_ , he figured, _she knew it had not been easy for him to do_. Lowering his own voice even more, noting out on the fringe around them that the other women had politely turned their attention back to their hurried preparations, he explained, "If you think about it, I had already lost control of the Pink Panther Diamond case when Alderman Lamb and Thurston Howell convinced Meyers and the Inspector not to arrest Sally…" He frowned and added, "Not to even permit me to check to see if Catfrey and Sally had already exchanged the real diamond for the fake…" _William felt the heat of his bottled-up anger rising inside himself,_ gritting his teeth against his will as he elaborated, "…the fake we **know** they made because Catfrey planted his listening device in **OUR HOME** …" _He swore for a second that he would even stomp his foot_ , but he brought his storming emotions under control, a mere hearty sigh all that sounded with his stopping himself.

"Well, I thank you William," Julia warmed, "And there's a little boy around here somewhere who's going to think he has the best Daddy in the whole wide world."

Pleased, Julia noticed that that thought had gotten a smile out of him.

"Yes," he gave, with a winsome bow, clamping his lips tightly with his accepting of it all as it was.

Julia watched as his eyes shifted to the kitchen table, and then to the stove.

William even turned his gaze into the dining room, the buffet partially spread out on the large table. _There were lobsters and salmon, Eloise's delicious tuna fish casserole, crab cakes and shrimp_ … With such a spark, his brain fired out the recognizing, " _It all makes sense!"_ so fast the connections clicked into place, " _It's a Friday, and we are Catholic…"_

"It's all fish," William exclaimed.

"Well of course, William," she nearly whispered, and then stepped close to him, and slipped her arms up around her husband's neck. "What else would you expect to eat at King Neptune's and Salacia's and Triton's party?"

And right then, right in that moment, he got it, and it made him so terribly, terribly happy. _She had planned this whole thing all along – the shocking, revealing costumes were selected, not because they would show off his and Julia's physiques, but because Halloween was on a Friday. And Julia had planned from THAT starting point, knowing they would have to serve fish, and that was the reason she had chosen King Neptune and Salacia for them!_

She watched, and she saw that he understood, that he appreciated, and her smile became humungous. She thought he might even be momentarily speechless, the thought making her giddy. She leaned close, floated her lips at his ear. "Yes, William," was all that she gave.

)

Time seemed of the essence, so William strove to quickly add his part to the indoor decorations, setting up his light-up moving image machines that each sprayed their walls and ceilings with shifting, vibrant projections of gurgling bubbles and swimming fish flowing about. William Jr. bounced from room to room to room, his bobbing fishtail stroking up and down behind him, trying to hurry his parents along, asking over and over again, "Tick-a-teat now? Tick-a-teat now?"

William and Julia hurried to get changed into their costumes, Julia wearing the more respectable beige camisole under her seashell bra and William's chest covered up in his blue pajama top. They hoped to return home before the first guests arrived. As the three of them reached the end of their path on their way out, they turned around to see that the popup monster had gone back down, ready to scare its next victims. Julia spotted some new ghosts fluttering up in the trees, and gave William's arm an adoring squeeze, for she imagined him making the ghosts out of sheets and then climbing up into the trees to hang them so that they would be just right.

"I am so lucky to have a husband who was once a lumberjack, now yet another way his many talents add spice to our lives," she said. She pointed up into the tree and asked her little son, "What did Daddy put up in the trees?"

"Ghosts!" William Jr. yelled, not yet having learned to tamp down his excitement when telling the answer.

)

The Murdoch's first Trick-or-Treating excursion was a success. The neighbors were highly receptive, and there were lots and lots of Halloween decorations to admire (though admittedly, none compared to William's popup monster), and everyone oohed and aahed over their Royal Sea Family costumes, and William Jr. got a big bagful of candy. The culmination was when they were coming home, and they got there just in time to be able to stand back and watch as a group of Trick-or-Treaters headed down their front path towards their front door. William and Julia, and mostly that little tyke of theirs, delighted in the show when the monster popped up, and all of the Trick-or-Treaters shrieked and jumped and startled, and then yelled out their excited declarations upon figuring out that, "it was just a trick," and sharing how scared they each had each been, one of them claiming that he hadn't been scared at all, and then pulling themselves together and braving continuing up the steps to ring the bell.

Claire-Marie had volunteered to give out the treats while the family was out. She reported on the fun everyone seemed to be having in coming to the Murdoch house to Trick-or-Treat.

Julia asked Claire-Marie to tend to William Jr. while she and William finished the details in preparing for the arrivals to come. She wanted him NOT to have the trident fork when the other children got here, worried it would accidently hurt someone, and she wanted him NOT to eat too much candy. _Claire-Marie appeared to be getting somewhere with the candy request, but not so much with the trident fork request, Julia thinking she might have to intervene…_

But what William leaned over and suggested in her ear was so wonderful, so amazing, that Julia let go of the whole trident-fork problem the moment he said it.

"Wife," he whispered, "I propose that, now that the more chilly and more public portion of our Halloween is complete, we head upstairs and remove the ' _extra'_ parts of these costumes."

Julia really could not believe her ears, taken aback she simply stared at him, mouth agape, for a moment.

"William," she exuded, "how delightful."

Julia marveled in her head, as they headed back down the stairs together just a short time later, wearing little more than their jeweled crowns and their fishtails, at the accomplishments of psychotherapy. Although she was well aware that her talk with William a few nights ago, so intimate and warm in the middle of the night after he had had a bad dream and while sharing a cup of hot chocolate, had certainly not been _officially_ 'psychotherapy,' she also knew that her helping him to see what he, himself, had been trying to tell himself had helped him immensely. Still, she found herself shaking her head at the astounding fact that a man as buttoned-up as _William Henry Murdoch would allow himself to be seen in public_ – _even if it was only at a private party in their own home_ – _bare-chested_. To be honest, she found it to be especially impressive that he would brave it when considering the humiliation and violation that William had gone through that horrible night out in the "jungle." Shaking off the distaste and hurt of imagining his pain, she smiled to herself as she thought, " _William did this to make ME happy_ ," and she treasured the glowy feelings of love for him that erupted in her chest with her coming to see, just how much, he wanted to please her.

)

The Murdoch Halloween Party was soon in full swing. Many guests had arrived, and fortunately for William Jr., quite a few of them had brought their children with them. The house was buzzing with conversation and laughter and stories, and clanking buffet dishes, and clinking glasses, and romping children of all sizes.

James Pendrick had come, dressed as a famous pirate from a popular novel series – the Tiger of Mompracem. He explained that his choice was predicated on wanting to fit in with the Julia's SEA theme.

Julia had caught her wandering eyes traveling down his ruggedly opened white shirt to notice that _James Pendrick, too, must do some weightlifting – he was quite nicely contoured_. A rush to take a sip of her wine, " _Behave_ ," she told herself in her head.

It was told that the Murdoch's costumes were courtesy of Mr. Pendrick, who was able to procure them because of his connections with people in the filmmaking industry, setting the listeners abuzz.

"It's a shame the star of my film about Detective Murdoch, um, if you happened to see it…" the now recognized film director said to the crowd who had gathered around himself and Julia.

A few people nodded.

"It was Constable George Crabtree who had the acting talent I needed," Pendrick grimaced, "Murdoch, um… well, he was… as you would expect if you know the man at all, I guess you'd say… Murdoch was annoyingly detailed."

Many, including Julia, laughed, for it was so perfectly said.

Pendrick went back to the film talk, "I'm sure George Crabtree would have loved to be here and tell you all about it," Pendrick told, as more joined near, listening to him and Julia tell the story.

Julia explained, "Constable Crabtree was needed to work on a case tonight, um..." _she considered if it would be a mistake to say more. Unknowingly, she glanced across the room to find William, heartened by the reminder that her husband had stuck to his promise to be home helping her with hosting this party tonight despite his desire and compulsion to be directly at hand on the most important night of his big home-invasion robbery case. A sigh escaped her unconsciously, for it seemed quite a few of the ladies at their party also appreciated William's bold choice about being a_ bare-chested _King Neptune as much as she did. She noted their wandering eyes as they swarmed around him like honey to a bunch of bees. She held back a giggle, for she spotted her new student, Annie Cranston – also of the Murdoch Appreciation Society, dressed as a mummy, was one of the admirers, along with her friend from the Murdoch Appreciation Society, that high-spirited reporter, Ruby Rosevear, aptly, Julia thought, dressed tonight as a rather nude-like bronze statue. Miss Rosevear had always been profoundly… devoted, if not somewhat enamored, with William. To balance against Julia's tilt towards being jealous, her mind reminded that Miss Rosevear had been quite helpful as an ally to them back when the press had been badgering them incessantly about not having solved the Body Dumper case, and impelling their readership, and seemingly most of Toronto, with demands that the city force them to close their Body Farm… And then she felt the sting, before her brain actually finished the thought, she remembered that the press had also been hounding them terribly, cruelly, about all their problems with adopting a child. She took a sip of her wine, pushing the pain away. "Back to the main point," she thought, Miss Rosevear is keeping herself close at hand…_ _ **very**_ _close at hand," her final thought on the matter lifting her eyebrow to herself subtly._

Pendrick had picked up the slack in their story, going on to magnanimously tell the tales of the making of his first film – _with sound_ , and how, "as always seems to happen whenever Murdoch is around, there was a murder, and, also of course, Detective Murdoch thought it was ME who had committed it at first, but then he figured out that I was actually the INTENDED VICTIM, and then in the end, he figured out who the murderer was and he caught her."

"Well actually," Julia interjected with an air of cockiness, "I caught her…"

"Oh yes," Pendrick gave with a winsome bow to her, "A woman of action, of that there is no doubt."

 _Julia thought she saw it, Pendrick's eyes drop down to soak in the sight of her clamshell-squashed breasts. "Behave,"_ Julia counselled herself _, stiffly forcing her own eyes to stay up, not to catch his eye, instead turning to another,_ commenting that the killer had been the film's editor.

Only a few minutes later, William received his first phone call of the night from George at the Riverdale Zoo where he was keeping a lookout during the Howell's 'Howell-oween Bash.' Deciding that the noise down in the foyer was too much for him to make out George's report, William went upstairs to their bedroom to take the call.

The constable's speech was quick and animated, _prompting William to think that things must be going well._ William stood by their bed listening as George filled him in, "Higgins spotted a man working in the coat room who ' **accidentally** ' took Madame Reveron's purse with her coat…"

 _This was fantastic!_ "Do you have someone watch…" William began to ask.

"Oh yes sir," George interrupted, "Higgins is watching the suspect, and we have Whitehall, remember sir, Constable Whitehall's dressed as a waiter, he's keeping an eye on Madame Reveron. And sir!" George's pride and enthusiasm bubbled, "We found it, sir! Well, actually, Inspector Guillaume's wife, Angelique, found it. She is an astounding woman, sir. Very… err, forward, I'd say… Perhaps that is just being French…"

 _William's jaw became rigid with his efforts at patience…_

George managed to meander back to the point, "Mrs. Guillaume had a look inside Madame Reveron's purse, held it for the woman when she used the toilet… At least, I guess that's what happened when the two of them went into the bathroom. It is the 'Ladies' room after all, sir, so I couldn't directly see of course…"

William's sigh sounded in the phone…

Rushing the lovable constable in response to the noise, George finally said, "There was a listening device, sir… just like the ones from the other robberies…"

" _And from my house_ ," William steamed the reminder of the personal insult in his head, still furious that Neil Catfrey had planted a listening device in Julia's purse that night when the strutting man dared flirt with her so brashly, and danced with her… _and then that maddening image of the suave, swaggering, good-looking Neil Catfrey dipping HIS wife back so romantically, while they were out there, for all to see, on the dance floor, stabbed through him once more…_

"Good George. It was wise to keep the Reveron's in the dark," he was relieved to hear his own voice taking back control, "they might have given us away if they knew," William praised, "But now we have the responsibility to…"

"I know sir, I know. Now it's up to us to stop the man before he robs her and her husband. We'll wait him out, follow him to wherever he has the receiver for the listening device hidden. If you're right sir – and I'm sure you are, the suspect will go there before the Reveron's leave the party for the night."

"Best send a man or two ahead to the Reveron's house, constable. Catching him there will provide the evidence we need to convict him, as well as keep the Reveron's out of any significant danger," William instructed.

"Of course! I don't know why I didn't think of that," George complained, embarrassed.

"There are many moving parts to this, Constable. And it sounds as if you have matters well at hand. I'll be waiting for updates," William hoped to ensue confidence as he signed off the call. His whole body itched with his wishing that he was there. The pressure building, he blew out through his lips, almost making a whistle. Then he noticed his black goatee beard had fallen off of his chin. " _Probably from rubbing against the phone_ ," he told himself as leaned down to retrieve it off the floor. He headed back downstairs pressing and urging the beard to adhere to his chin once more, battling with trying to appear athletic while confronting the steps while wearing the tight-kneed fishtail. His mind ventured to the other case, the one George had not mentioned, the one he was officially NOT working on, _and he wondered if anyone was keeping an eye on Sally._

)

As James Pendrick and Julia finished their stories of the filmed adventures of Detective William Murdoch, Mrs. Kitchen noticed that there was someone else from Stationhouse #4 besides Constable Crabtree who was not at the Murdoch's party. She asked if Inspector Brackenreid and his wife were coming tonight. "They are both so lively," she added hopefully.

William's popup monster's bone-chilling laugh from the front of the house sounded again, and all eyes turned towards the front door. The latest round of Trick-or-Treaters could be heard screaming outside with their unexpected fright. Julia hurried a last sip of her glass of wine as she readied to go to the door and she responded to Mrs. Kitchen's question, "I believe the Brackenreid's were invited to the " _Howell-_ oween Bash' over at the Riverdale Zoo."

Many eyebrows lifted. "The Howell's are amongst the most hobnob of all Toronto society," the director of Julia's University, Dr. Stowe-Gullen, shared.

"Most definitely," Julia agreed, standing and fluffing and fussing with the top, sequined-skirt, portion of her long, rubber fishtail.

Thinking she would bring her son with her to the door, Julia glanced over near the foyer to where William Jr. was on the living room floor playing with Enid's little girl, Alice. The three or four older children had abandoned them, most likely because they were 'too little,' and had taken over the playroom downstairs. Julia called to them, "William Jr.! Alice! Trick-or-Treaters."

She grasped her little boy's hand, helping him up to his feet in his confining Triton costume, inviting him and his friend to come with her to the door to see the costumes of the Trick-or-Treaters, who just at that particular moment had overcome their shock at William's popup monster sufficiently to manage to ring the doorbell. As she passed by their young nanny, the woman's actions impressing her by aptly balancing letting her tiny charge enjoy the other children and play, but at the same time watching him attentively, Julia paused to ask, "Claire-Marie, I suggest this be William Jr.'s last Trick-or-Treaters for the night. Let's spare the little one, hmm?" Julia rubbed the top of her son's head unconsciously admiring his black curls, "No more need to struggle with the fishtail. We'll take it off for the rest of the evening… That way that he'll have a better chance at keeping up with the other children."

The nanny smiled. "I believe that will make the wee one happy, doctor," she agreed.

Headed for the door Julia's thoughts returned to the conversation in the living room. Gratefully, Julia had been able to hold off her self-congratulatory smile until she was out of the living room, for she was abundantly pleased with herself. She had been quick to think on her feet back when William had first come to suspect that Neil Catfrey was after the Pink Panther Diamond, and he had worried that he would not be able to be at the Howell's Howell-oween Bash because of their own Halloween party that same night. She had promised him then that she would get someone competent from the Constabulary invited to the Howell's fancy party, and she did. It had turned out that the snobby Thurston Howell had invited her and William to his party. Not liking the man much, the snooty toff always reminding people to call him, "Thurston Howell - THE FIRST…" _Julia caught herself being catty, thinking snidely, "the snob is SO certain his "Lovey" will soon give him an heir." There it was again, that sting, bringing her to sigh._ Her brain went back to her big success… She had intended all along to turn down the invitation _._ Figuring that the shallow man and his wife were as much interested in procuring the attendance of her celebrity husband as they were interested in her good Ogden name, she had suggested that if Mr. Howell wanted a distinguished Constabulary presence at his party, he should consider inviting her husband's **superior**. Thurston Howell, _the First_ , being so haughty, the word 'superior' had done the trick. Julia shook her head at the coup, for surely securing such an honor for Margaret, whom she knew would be beside herself with receiving such an invitation, was only the icing on the cake after having been able to help William with his case.Margaret Brackenreid would likely never know that it was her who had gotten it done. " _A lovely little secret,_ " she thought. Besides she and William both wanted to be with their young son to celebrate Halloween, to get to enjoy seeing the many odd traditions through his fresh eyes.

"Would you both like to hold the bowl of candy with me?" she asked Alice and her son. _It was perfect, truly perfect_.

)

Alone in the dining room momentarily, having returned from the latest round of answering the door to Trick-or-Treaters, Julia gratefully poured herself a glass of whiskey. Her thoughts dwelled on what had just happened, one of their neighbors, _a slimy man, she realized now she had always thought_ , had been rudely suggestive with her in front of, not only his own children, but also in front of his wife. She re-heard his grating voice in her mind, _"It seems your husband provided the trick, doctor, but it is YOU, in THAT costume…"_ his eyes down on her and his sleazy sneer nauseating her, " _that is the treat_ ," he had said while gaping down at her clamshells. _Every fiber of her wanted to slap the scuzzy creep in the face!_ Almost back to the lively chatter of the living room, she took a sip appreciating the warm sting of the liquor down her throat, " _Thank God William wasn't there to see,_ " she tried to see the bright side, _a part of her thrilled with her imagining William punching the man in the nose._

A rowdy herd of children barreled up the stairs, swerving left and right around her in pursuit of… " _Oh my,_ " her happy mother heart exclaimed, for the baby was having an absolute blast. His stuffed dinosaur in hand, he was the center of all the other children's attention. Unfortunately, even though he had been freed of his fishtail, his tininess slowed him down sufficiently, being the youngest one of the bunch, that catching him did not take long at all. Relief though, for the little boy's mother, because the biggest boy in the lot chose to carry little William Jr. – with his treasured dinosaur clutched tightly to his tiny chest – back down into the playroom, with all the other children yapping, and skipping, and going along behind.

At the entrance into the living room, Julia paused to take in the sight. People were having a good time. Talk was vibrant, food and drink abundant. She spied William across the room, thinking to herself with a chuckle that _he seemed to be grateful to be amongst other males for a break from all the female flirtations_. William appeared to be listening to a rather entertaining story, along with nearly all of the men in attendance at the party, amongst them Enid's young and good-looking husband, the fireman, Julia's own professorship mentor's husband, John Gullen, and another of her Charity friend's husbands – _his name she could not remember_ , as well as Isaac and Isaac's 'friend,' James. The storyteller was the young Mr. Hume, the only man here tonight who was a member of the original Murdoch Appreciation Society, from back when the group had made up a fake case to test William's skills… _a fake case that had turned out to be real_ , she remembered. Mr. Hume was dressed as a cowboy. Suddenly, Julia's brain jolted! " _Of course!"_ she exclaimed to herself, " _It's a theme. The four members of the original Murdoch Appreciation Society are each wearing a costume from one of William's cases! How clever! Mrs. Dewar is Sherlock Holmes, Miss Cranston is a mummy…_

But with that thought, Julia's brain sent her an associated memory, the emotion of it arriving first. The familiar bite was that of jealousy, and the memory was of the first and only time that she had met the, notably attractive, Egyptian archeologist. William had worked on a case with this stunning woman, back when she had first been married to Darcy. And then, she remembered, William had subsequently, years after that case, had dinner – _all alone in their hotel suite,_ with this evocative woman. Back then Julia had wondered if she would ever forgive herself for cancelling that night, unknowingly leaving William alone with this gorgeous and intriguing woman. A stab of shame tore through her unexpectedly, for she caught herself thinking that she need no longer worry about the threat of William being taken with the other beautiful doctor, for Dr. Iris Bajjali had died when trying to escape with the Holy Grail.

" _So_ ," she urged herself out of the quagmire of guilt, " _Miss Cranston is the mummy, and the very frisky and alluring Miss Rosevear is one of the victims from that bizarre case with the copper-encloaked naked women, each one of their bodies showing up, humiliatingly displayed, in a public park, and Mr. Hume is a cowboy from the case with Buffalo Bill. Rather marvelous_ ," she gave the creative group, then thought, her big blue eyes back, once more, dallying on her own handsome husband, " _So astounding, this man, full of surprises, just suddenly hops up and rides a horse, and ropes an escaping murderer… or climbs up a precipitous pole to disarm a bomb, for, of course, William Murdoch had also been a lumberjack. And, besides all his physical prowess, he has a brain that can figure out how a murderer can manage to get dead women encased in copper sulfate…_ His intelligence had always, always intrigued her _. "I wonder,"_ Julia's inner voice talked to her in her head, _"if William has already put it all together, the Murdoch Appreciation Society's grand clandestine mystery about their costumes."_

Abruptly, their eyes met from across the room, setting off a spark in her. Her instincts hollered at her to _look away, not to get caught peeking at him_ , but she resisted, held to his gorgeous chocolaty eyes and smiled. He smiled too, and then Isaac turned to look. _Too much, that._ Julia turned to attend to a different group. "Mrs. Dewar," she called, "Sherlock Holmes! Such a perfect costume for you."

"Dr. Ogden," the older woman greeted, "Thank you so much for inviting me and the other members of the Murdoch Appreciation Society."

"Why, of course," Julia gave, stepping closer. Julia had used the invitation as a way to thank Mrs. Dewar and the others for their support back when the press had been so awful. It was Mrs. Dewar who had written the Op-Ed that had done much to tamp down on the attacks on herself and William in the headlines. Madge Merton, whose timely article had helped immeasurably, had also been extended an invitation, but unfortunately the famous gossip columnist could not come – it turned out she was attending the Howell-oween Bash instead.

On his side of the room, finding his bothersome goatee beard had once again fallen off, William excused himself and went down to his workroom to try a stronger adhesive. That was when he discovered that the playroom looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. There were toys everywhere… toys William did not even know that William Jr. owned. He surprised himself however, for his reaction to the messy sight was joy rather than annoyance – his little son was having the experience of a lifetime with all his new friends. William Murdoch could not have been happier.

Arriving back upstairs, it was now William's turn to stand back and bask in Julia's beauty, and grace, and… _**zing**_. " _She is gorgeous_ ," his mind warmly exhaled the thought, _and he wondered how he had ever ended up being so very lucky._ He remembered Guillaume, all those years ago when they had ridden together in that carriage, and the Frenchman had told him that he could tell that he was in love with, "that coroner" because, as Guillaume had said it back then, "of the way YOU sneak glances at her when she's not looking. The way SHE sneaks glances at you…" _So wonderful, to still be so in love with each other after all this time._

He walked up next to her and wrapped an arm around her waist. With everyone watching, he leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Our son is having the time of his life downstairs," he told her.

"Isn't it delightful," she whispered back, then giving him a soft peck of his own at his ear in return.

Remembering that Julia had recently received word that she won the Annual Canadian Coroner's Association Award, William then proceeded to share about her success with their guests. "She'll be giving a big speech," he went on.

Gracious, Julia called over the two students who had worked with her on the research that the prestigious national association had cited as the particular paper that they were most impressed by. It had been based on the work they had done at their Murdoch Body Farm. It seemed oddly fitting, somehow, after all they had been through with the press calling for the city to force them to close down their "morbid" Body Farm, that it would be THAT particular research article that had ended up making Toronto stand out as the best in the country.

)

Augusta Stowe-Gullen and Julia sat together on an end of one of the sofas, enjoying the chance to catch up with each other. "The award you're getting is quite a feather in the cap for our College, Julia," Augusta, the Director of the Ontario Medical College for Women, commended. The older woman noticed Julia glance over towards the fireplace before she gave her response, agreeing and expressing her excitement with the professional achievement. Augusta smiled to herself realizing that _Julia Ogden's handsome husband was over there_ , explaining the woman's glance, easily the third one since they had been sitting here talking. She considered making some comment, maybe something like, ' _our students seem quite taken with your husband_ ," for Detective Murdoch was surrounded by the young women in Julia's class, and few others, she noted, taking a look to see for herself.

William wished there was a way to back them off a bit, increasing the pressure of the ledge of the fireplace mantle into his back as he tried in earnest to broaden the distance between himself and their feminine attentions. The women had become enthused by their discovery of his scars. Quickly, William bolted a glimpse across the room to Julia, looking stressed.

"This one is so close to your heart. May I touch it?" one of the women asked him. This particular woman, dressed in a tight, thin, _extremely revealing,_ black cat costume, was especially forward, William had already noted earlier.

"I'd prefer not," he answered, reaching up and stopping her hand. Afterwards, his throat so dry, he swallowed.

Across the room, Julia nearly gasped at the sight. Mrs. Stowe-Gullen felt herself sit up straighter.

Then another of the young students asked, her eyes wide with taking in the view of William's well-contoured left pectoral muscle. "I'll bet this one's from a bullet!" she giddied to the others.

William could not help it – he just had to step back. "Yes," he answered. He decided it best to touch the scar up near his shoulder himself, physically blocking them, at least a little, with his arm. "But… err, it… um, it was treated by a native medicine woman – an Algonquin healer."

Julia tried to explain to her friend and colleague, fighting to pull her eyes away from the scene to find Augusta's eyes, "It's these rather revealing costumes… all the attention."

"It is quite something," Augusta marveled, a hidden part of her, herself, guiltily entranced with the beauty of both Julia, and her husband, and the delicious attention the man was receiving, and Julia's obvious infatuation with the man, and her coping with all that was going on.

William abruptly excused himself. On his way past Julia and her friend he stopped and said, "This fishtail is so hot by the fire I had to get away."

"Are you sure it was the fire?" Julia teased, her sly smile intoxicating.

Taking a quick glance back over to the fireplace where the cluster of young women had huddled close together and become engaged in prattled whispers, William blew out some of his pent-up pressure.

The sweet gesture prompted Julia to laugh.

"A glass of water," he said lifting his eyebrows high and widening his big eyes, then giving the briefest of nods and heading off towards the kitchen.

"My goodness, he is adorable," Augusta confided, leaning closer to Julia and divulging her inner thoughts.

"I'd best give him some attention," Julia explained, swigging the end of her whiskey and standing to follow after him.

)

 _They were alone together in the kitchen_ , Julia noticed with glee upon finding William at the kitchen sink. She approached, and he turned to her. "Quite a turnout," she started, _and in her own mind she tingled-up a little memory of her nervous use of that same exact comment to him back when she had surprised him by showing up at the Policeman's Annual New Year's Ball at the turn of the century, and somewhat ironically it had turned out, at a major turn in their lives as well, her in her shocking red dress, back then so very nervous and needing some small talk to cope_. _She remembered she had joked at the time that it would be a good night to commit a crime, and then her mind reminded her that right at this very moment it was possible that William's robber may be doing just that._ With all that, she felt a warmth of gratitude and an inner need to thank her lucky stars that she had such a wonderful man as her life-partner, her soul mate, standing right there with her, in this moment, all things considered. She went on, "Are you having a good time?" she asked him, adding quickly, "There's nice conversation… and the young women seem to like you…" There was a devilish smile.

"They are very direct," he interjected, then offered, "Maybe it's their youth, or being in a group of confident friends." William shook his head showing his dismay, and confided, "They just say what's on their mind." He took a sip of his water.

Tact not always her high suit, Julia plainly blurted, "It's plain what they want from you, William, is sex."

A cascading spray of water suddenly spewed through the air as William's shock caused him to accidently inhale, and then choke on, his water.

Julia giggled.

William asked, his voice scratchy with choking and disbelief, "You believe each of those women want to…"

"I do, William. And you do too," Julia's voice had become husky and low, and so seductive. Thus, when she stepped closer to him he felt his inner realms start to hum, and pulse, and begin to vibrate. Her mouth so close to his ear he felt the heat of her breath as she said, just under it, "Don't deny it." She lifted her cheek to slide it up his jawline and over his cheek, then so tenderly, she kissed his temple and told him, "They want to feel those long lashes glance their cheeks," and her hands rode up his arms to wrap around his neck as she added, "And those muscly arms holding them in place," and then she slid her hands down and rubbed tantalizingly over the ups and downs of his bare chest telling, "And, delicious William, they imagine the heavenly sensation of this fine chest pressed firmly, solidly, hard…" Julia stepped that final inch to touch her soft, marshmallowy body into him, him feeling the surprising cold, hardness of the two ridged clamshells startle his skin, the sensation catching his breath, as she exhaled her hot words, "….pressing and pushing against their bosoms…" and she kissed his lips, and then changed the angle and kissed him deeper. "And, _mmm_ , the way you would move, William," she moaned as, ever so slightly, Julia began to wiggle erotically against him, "smooshing and driving and storming your manly body into them over and over again and, oh… yes, finally, perfectly, culminating so powerfully…"

Thinking he had managed to resist her charms, he smiled, for he had held up, not fallen into the wobbles that threatened collapse into a soupy brained, unmanageable hunger for her. He carefully placed the water glass down in the sink and teased, the hint of a smile curved on his lips through her kisses, which intermittently released his lips to let him speak, her lusty lips now fluttering over his jaw down to his neck. "So, Mrs. Murdoch," his tone promised his poking, "I am just the same thing to you, a mere toy for your sexual pleasure?"

Her giggle purred at his ear, "Oh no, William, I want much, much, more…" luscious kisses poured over his flesh, "I want your heart…" and her hand covered his heart as she kissed him more, "I want your soul," _so dizzying_ , her hand now moving, and rubbing, and devouring over his heart and all over his chest, and down, down lower, to ripple up and down over the hilly muscles of his firm stomach…

 _Unbearable_ , the twitch, and sparks, and sizzling shooting straight to his groin, making him, forcing him, to gasp. _He was so, so dizzy…_

Julia's tempting, luring, calling, slaying, continued past what seemed the point of no return for him, "I want ALL of your heart, and ALL of your soul, I want every delicious drop of you, William. Every delicious drop. I want your love, William. I want to make LOVE with you, not just se…"

The plunge, suddenly, unexpectedly, _so disorienting all at once_ , pulled out of euphoria by a sound.

"Oh my!" someone else's voice in the room shot them apart.

 _They'd been caught canoodling_ , the panic of the realization electrified through them! William and Julia's eyes bolted to see Julia's friend, Caroline, standing at the kitchen's entrance.

"Oh… Caroline!" Julia's voice, too high-pitched, tried to stabilize. Fretfully, she reached a hand up to her hair in an effort to straighten it, to be presentable.

"Please, please," Caroline reassured them both, "That's not necessary. Honestly, you two have been ogling each other all night," she chuckled, going on, "like two young lovers." She shook her head marveling, "Believe me, no one would be surprised to find you had finally snuck off together somewhere."

 _Odd,_ the woman's eyes seemed to become stuck, caught, stunned by something lower, something unexpected down on Julia's…

William and Julia each followed the woman's gaze.

 _ **Oh!**_ The air seemed to be sucked out of the room in an instant as they each saw it there – William's goatee beard had fallen off – again, and now had lodged itself in the sexy intimacy of the cleavage between each of Julia's… clamshells! _Amazing how fast the brain can work, for both William and Julia experienced the same internal connection, although neither of them would ever come to know it had happened, both of them touching so rapidly to the same shared and poignant memory – being reminded of Julia's metal locket, all those years ago, clicking magnetically to William's badge._

"Caroline," Julia gasped the words, "You must think he was… um," she tried desperately to lift the black tuft from between her breasts, finding that now, of all times, the adhesive had managed to stick tight.

William's beautiful eyes darted from cleavage, to Caroline, to Julia, back to cleavage. "The adhesive seems to work better on you than on me," he offered with an embarrassed chuckle. Inside of himself, he was battling desperately with his instincts to help, torn by the concern that it would be seen as too suggestive for him to reach in and touch Julia – _**there**_ … while Caroline was watching them.

A shared smile, Julia raised her prize proudly up into the air. _Thank God_ , she had the beastly item in her fingers. Both exhaling their relief, she tenderly reaffixed the sticky side of the fake beard to William's chin. Finished, she trumpeted a, "Voila," presenting the, now perfect, royal King Neptune and his wife Salacia once more. The two of them turned, gratefully recovered from it all, to face Caroline.

The woman's eyes boldly perused thoroughly up and down over the two of them. She shared her thoughts, "Mm, you two Murdoch's do make a good-looking couple – absolutely gorgeous," she praised.

Helping to save the adults from the uncomfortable pause, a herd of squealing children rumbled through, rushing to hide themselves here and there, under the table, behind the hutch. It was a game of hide-and-seek!

Julia quickly glanced to her husband, knowing he would want to take up with the play.

"Oh no!" she screamed out, "The Daddy Monster's going to get us!" She dove under the table to join two of the children hiding there. "Shh," she shushed them excitedly, pretending to hide with them.

"ROAR!" William's playful growl sounded, sending wild, gleeful shrieks throughout the whole house as children from myriads of different hiding places took flight. The game spilled out into the living room where two of the other fathers joined in, becoming Daddy Monsters themselves, snarling, and limping about and becoming all around ferocious.

The two youngest children, William Jr. and Enid's Alice, made their usual mistake, not yet fully grasping how to really play hide and seek at their age, unable to tolerate the secret, the tension, of hiding, they called out, telling the monsters where they were hiding. "Over here!" Alice called, followed by the two children's excited giggles cascading out from behind the piano over in the corner of the room.

Suddenly, from behind the curtains, the oldest boy jumped out to distract all the monsters from the littlest ones, screaming loudly head-on into their collective fierce faces and then charging for safety from the fiends. Two of the other children, and Julia, saw the fleeing boy coming right towards them, scary monsters in tow, from where they stood at the entrance into the living room. Such squeals as they all split up, one down to the playroom, Julia up the stairs, and the other child back into the kitchen. The oldest boy, too, rushed down the stairs, his own father chasing after him. William raced after Julia up the steps. The third Daddy Monster, Enid's husband and little Alice's father, scurried after the child headed for the kitchen. So quickly, Alice and William Jr., not wanting to miss out on anything, hurried down into the playroom too.

Julia could be heard crying out as she tried to hop up the stairs, "William! I can't run in this costume!"

"Me either," he hollered after her. But, he was gaining on her as, comically, the two of them engaged in a slow-motion hopping race up the stairs, much like salmon leaping and flinging themselves upstream, and then he dove down onto her as they rounded the corner halfway up the stairs, taking the brunt of the weight on his arms to keep her safe as they fell together onto the upper portion of the stairway landing.

Again, his beard fell off, prompting him to get the bright idea of trying to put it on Julia's chin. His voice still excited, he told her, "You made a very good-looking man in the past, milady. I do believe it is time to try it again."

"William!" she screamed, "Don't you dare," her voice lowered.

Her beautiful, big, blue, eyes, so magnetic, stole his breath, stunned him as he hovered there above her. Chests heaving together, breathless, madly in love, Julia tilted her head, inviting his kiss.

" _Mmm_ ," _he was so soft_ , his tongue dipped in.

 _Magnificent, this kiss._

Slowly, they remembered where they were, Daddy-Monster roars and high-pitched shrieks reaching in from outside through the vibrant spin of their love. William broke off their kissing.

"Perhaps…" his voice so lovely, still raspy from his desire in her ear, "the beard would be more appreciated by William Jr."

"Sounds wise," she whispered a gentle response.

William rolled off of her onto his back, the two of them together staring up at the ceiling, basking in the happy dizziness, breathing heavily, giving themselves the moment.

Julia wondered, "Do you remember that night, when we got home from Peter Pan…"

"Mm," he gave.

Julia giggled, contagious, William did too. "You… I still can't believe you did it!" she marveled, "Taking my feather. William Henry Murdoch – a thief. Running off with my hairband's bright red feather, unbelievable where you put it," Julia rolled herself up to prop up on an elbow and look into his eyes. She leaned down and gave him a quick, admiring, kiss.

William reached out, grasped a curl, sparkly and luminous with its glittering green seaweed weaved and braided into it. So lovely, the way his fingers caressed against her cheek. "And you, wife. Such a vixen, hmm? Seducing me, stealing it back, leaving me there, all… aroused."

 _Julia found it to be absolutely adorable, the way William needed to swallow with his discomfort in using the word – 'aroused,' to describe his state._

Julia's hand rubbed his chest, and her laughter rocketed. "I'll never forget the sight of you, William," she fell back into laughter, and her eyes twinkled into his as he laughed as well, William remembering, knowing, exactly what it was that she was going to say, "Flying, just like the never-growing-up Peter Pan himself, sprawled out flat, soaring through the air in our hallway…" the laughter reddening her face, needing to breathe, she finally spit the rest of it out, "Your trousers tripping you up while you tried to run, pants wrapped down around you ankles!" She collapsed down onto him and he tucked his arms around her tight.

"So undignified," William stated the obvious, the vibrations of his voice tickling her eardrum as she lay on top of him, collapsing them both back into laughter once more.

Julia, exhausted, plopped back down onto her back next to him. The ceiling in her view once more she said, "It's one of my favorite memories."

"We have so many good ones," he said next to her.

"And bad ones," she made an effort to be realistic, balanced.

"Those just serve to make the good ones better," William encouraged.

"That they do," she agreed.

Quiet, for a moment, between them.

Julia's voice broke the spell. "There's such a lovely little boy inside of you William," she said. "I see him sometimes, like that night you stole my feather, and when you're playing with William Jr., or… sometimes, when you're tinkering with some invention, or you've gotten excited about something in a journal you've read, or you've seen something that has awed you about the world," Julia paused, searching deeper. "You had to grow up so quickly, when you were so young. I think that's why that little boy is still in there - it's like he got frozen inside of you when you became a man, in just a day…"

"I think it was you, who thawed him out," William said, now turning to her.

She smiled. She propped up again, cupped his cheek and said, "What a good man that little boy became."

A tear shimmered and quivered, harbored by his thick, long, black lashes.

William sat up, Julia following suit, the two of them sitting together on the stair-landing, their long fishtails laid out in front of them on the lower platform.

Julia reached over and took a gentle hold of his chin, then turned his face to hers. "I'm afraid I've made you sad," she said.

"No. No, what you said is beautiful. I just..." He stopped abruptly, _for wishing was mere whimsy_.

"What were you going to say, William?" Julia urged him to share more.

He frowned, then wrinkled his mouth admitting to it. "I wish my mother had not died that early is all, that she could have seen me grow, could have met you..." The glistening tear burst free and streamed down his cheek before he rushed to bat the childish spurt away. He finished, his voice choked up now, "I wish she had been able to know William Jr. She would have adored him, would have loved him so much." William's big eyes looked into hers, _no shame at all of his tears… not when he was with her_. He shook his head, pushing at the pain, "That little boy would have loved her so much." His lips clamped together, bearing it.

"Yes," she treasured his tears as much as she wiped them away, "William Jr. would have adored his grandmother immensely." Julia leaned closer, a tender taste of the saltiness with her kiss to his cheek. She swallowed it down, felt the heat of it spread through her. "Do you know what I wish, William?" she asked, not expecting a reply, "I wish your mother could have seen you, could have known what an amazing and good, good, man you are."

William wiped at another tear, fought against the pain by self-deprecating, "She wanted me to be a priest. At least Susana…"

Julia nestled even closer to him on that one step halfway between up and down together, hugged his arm, "William," her tone strong, firm, so confident and sure and steady that he was drawn to it, that he knew it would comfort him down into his core, "There is a decency, an honest regard for every person and every single thing in this world, in you, that would have fulfilled your mother's every hope until it spilled over with pride and joy for her son, I promise you that."

His eyes, so gorgeous, and big, and warm, warm chocolate brown, held hers as he seemed to float there, lingering, about to, so very close to, accepting wholly his mother's love for him. Like a warm breeze, she nudged, "That's what I wish…" and the biggest teardrop in all the world fell, and was caught by her thumb on his face, and then a kiss.

There was a phone call, drawing their attention to hush and listen to hear as Claire-Marie hurried from the playroom to answer the call.

"Detective…" Claire-Marie's voice raised loud enough to make it over the party's din.

From halfway up the stairs at the bend, William and Julia realized by her voice being aimed directly at them, that their extended fishtails could be seen poking out on the landing. Julia peeked her head around the corner.

"It's Constable Crabtree, for the detective, doctor," Claire-Marie informed.

"Thank you, Claire-Marie," she answered. "Please wait there until he gets it, he'll take it up here," she requested.

It was profoundly difficult to get up from the floor in their leg-clamping fishtails. Stronger, and closer to the handrail, William managed to stand. Laughing together, Julia still struggled.

"I feel like I'm pregnant all over again," she giggled, turning her body this way and that, trying to rock to get momentum. Failing miserably, she huffed. She would have to accept the immodesty of it, having refused William's help. It would have to be the more childish way, rolling over onto one's hands and knees to be able to lift one's self up. Giving it a try, Julia discovered that, entwined in this clinging fishtail, even that was challenging, unable to fully bend her knees, and unable to separate her legs, it was nearly impossible to pull a leg forward to place it under her body to push herself up.

There was a sigh, William heard her, as he watched, thrilled by the show.

The only way to accomplish getting up was for Julia to keep her feet together, hold her knees together and tight, and then 'walk' her hands backwards, getting closer and closer to her feet, the action lifting her magnificent, shapely bottom, _particularly in this tight-fitting mermaid-like costume_ , higher and higher, swaying it sexily left and right, up into the air…

The sight shot a thunderbolt charging directly to William's groin, erupting it into a scrumptious throbbing.

"Now it seems, milady," William's tone betrayed his lustful reaction to her wriggling about on the floor in front of him, "You've quite brought out the full-grown man in me."

Finally standing, she was out of breath from the effort and deliciously taken by the lusty look of him. She brushed at her hair, and adjusted her crown, tilted her head, subtle, her fascinating, siren-song wiggles.

"Have I?" she asked, coyly.

Suddenly, William remembered the phone.

She saw his expression change, and then she remembered it too. "Your phone call… Oh, go on detective, go see what's happening with the case," she smiled.

)

"Just updating you, sir," George's voice explained in the telephone's earpiece.

"Is the suspect still on the premises… there at the zoo?" William asked.

"Yes, err, yes. So, we still don't know where he will go, um, to listen in to the device he planted in Madame Reveron's purse, err, you know, wherever it is that his hideout is waiting." Remembering the detective's earlier conversation, George hurried to add, "But sir, as you suggested, there are two constables hiding in the bushes at the Reveron's house… well, if you think about it, it's really more of a mansion than a house, sir… It has those big turrets, like you'd expect in a castle…"

 _It didn't surprise either party when William's huffy sigh sounded in the phone._

There was a momentary pause, George trying to get back on track.

William guided, "And on the other case…"

"Oh yes, sir. The one we're NOT working on," George recovered, _William almost able to hear the constable winking into the phone. He hoped, for his own sake, that George had managed to secure a phone out of earshot, at least out of earshot of Clegg, and Meyers, and Alderman Lamb and Thurston Howell._

"I'm sure you'd be interested to hear, Detective Murdoch, sir, that… err, um, well, Sally Pendr…" George felt the gleeful tickle of good gossip, lowering his voice to just above a whisper he told, "Err, Sally Hubble is here. And, my – oh – my, sir, you should see her. She's wearing a, um a… well, honestly sir, it looks like something my girl Nina would wear in one of her burlesque shows at the _StarRoom_. It is… well sir, suffice it to say, you will just have to imagine it, is all. Her costume is a pink cat, fitting to the theme of the affair here tonight…" George halted himself there with a thought. Off on another track he went. "You know sir," suddenly he was sharing a juicy secret, "Madge Merton is here. I'm sure her photographer got a picture of Sally in the scandalous costume!"

"Constable, I don't have all night," William groaned, losing his patience.

"Oh, sorry. Um, it's just that, well I'm sure you've never seen Sally Pendri… err, I mean Miss Hubble, in her altogether, sir. Well, she might as well be in this cat suit. It is really quite something," George could not resist.

George rambled on, and for once, _William was grateful,_ for his own mind had been jarred by the constable's innocent assumption. _Shame had snuck up on him_ , as he stood there next to his and Julia's marital bed, so many, many years after it had happened – _after he HAD seen Sally Pendrick in her altogether. It had been the sneakiness of the sensation that had lingered with the event, his having had seen the voluptuous woman naked, her being a married woman. That was the event that had always been hidden behind Sally's giving him her portrait in the first place. He had been dumbfounded by the unexpected sight of the woman's shapely, curvy, body. The image still seemed to have a strange power to it, so un-allowed, the sheer forbiddenness of his seeing her like THAT, out in the broad daylight, just suddenly out of the blue, adding such guilty weight to the pleasure. He reminded himself that it wasn't like he had betrayed Julia, to feel such stirrings – for back then, Julia hadn't even yet met Darcy Garland. And Julia was starting to hint that she was unhappy here in Toronto – with him. And further, he had not yet had the opportunity – again, it had been so incredibly unexpected when it did happen, so guiltily, deliciously, forbidden, when he and the Inspector came upon Julia Ogden… au natural. Once he had seen her, though, then he had known, down into his bones, that Julia Ogden was truly the sexiest woman in all the world…_

In the midst of the background rattling on of George's incessant talking in the phone, William heard the words " _ **the Inspector**_ ," and the invoking of his superior's name seemed to jolt him back into the moment.

The constable was still chattering excitedly about Sally's costume, William gathered, hearing George say, "It's like you're seeing her in one of the Inspector's more… well, err, one of his less landscape-ish paintings, if you know what I mean, sir. Like the one he painted of my Nina…"

 _Wham_ , the image hit William so hard all over again, his remembering of his discovering of the Inspector's sketch of Julia, _so breathtaking and mesmerizing the moment he saw it_ , _**IT**_ being the one he had dropped, likely because it was smaller than all of the others in the Inspector's art portfolio. _It was so remarkably gorgeous – SHE was so remarkably gorgeous._ The Inspector had seen her too, that day, that day they had raced into the woods at the nudist colony to try to save George's life, only to find that Julia was already there, naked, and had, at just that second, saved George herself with a whack of a shovel. The case of the stabbed painter, the case they had closed when William was helping the inspector clean out his art studio, when he discovered the Inspector's sketch of HIS wife in the nude, was years later. It was the case George referred to just now on the telephone, the one that had gotten the Inspector painting again, painting such salacious and erotic and outrageous portraits of naked women. But, William knew, and the Inspector knew that William knew, _that the Inspector had been haunted by the image of seeing HIS Julia that day long ago, so much so that he had had to draw her to free himself from it. Still, he had kept the sketch all those years…_

"…her pink suit is so tight that a man need not imagine... of course you would sir, not being here to see it in person…" George went on, "I must say, though, sir, this skintight style for young women must be the latest Halloween costume fashion. Albeit that there are at least 6 black cats here tonight, I mean it is a Halloween party after all, but two of the ladies here tonight are similarly dressed as the more scandalous type of felines, like our Miss Hubble, but not in pink, not like the Pink Panther, but instead as the more traditional black cat. And truthfully, sir, not a one of them can compare to Miss Hubble, sir, or, I would certainly add, the whole lot of them are not anywhere near as attractive as your, err, as um your… wife, err, uh, I'm sure sir…"

 _It was getting so hot in here…_

"I mean, err, err, I have seen her, um, the doctor, sir… Your wife, err… uh, that time in the woo…"

"George!" if William hadn't whispered the order for the constable to halt, it would have been yelling. There was a hesitation, the detective taking a deep breath. "I'd prefer not to think about it, George," William said more calmly.

The wave of discomfort quickly passed, for George at least, and he giggled with a thought, _absolutely astounded that he had been permitted to go on so long._ "Oh, and my goodness, you would not believe the two spies, sir. Alan Clegg and Mr. Meyers practically challenged each other to a duel to determine which one of them would get to be the one to, um, ' _handle_ ' Miss Hubble for the night. I suppose in the end, Mr. Clegg won because Mr. Meyers couldn't top the argument that Sally might recognize him, from back at the time when she tried to sell that potato-cooking weapon… Remember…"

 _The familiar annoyance was coming back to him…_

"Now, our Mr. Meyers is quite a miserable loser, taken to sulking, if you ask me. And dare I say, sir, the spy has had much too much alcohol. And he's an unruly drunk, sir. Not like me. Do you remember, when you invented the slippery shoe, for our curling match… when Leslie Garland stole my girl. I must say, I'm a sweet, lovable, sort of drunk. But Meyers just wants to fight everybody…"

 _William's teeth were gritted so tautly he thought he might chip a tooth. He suddenly was beyond sighing._ "Constable! Has there been anyone suspicious… around the diamond? Is Inspector Guillaume on top of it?" he demanded.

" _Oh_ ," George fretted into the phone, "Guillaume's been dealing with Mr. Meyers for the most part. I think he's worried that our Meyers'll scare Sally off. And, err, well sir, no one would dare get anywhere near to the diamond on display. There's a, well you know, but it is surprisingly intimidating, having monster-sized pink-colored lion, right there next to it. The lion's in just a cage there, and she can reach out from the cage with her huge paws through the bars… and those claws sir. The only person brave enough to go anywhere near that lion is the vet… Now she's quite a looker… Dr. Mole. She told me that the black lions all around the Pink Panther Diamond are actually jaguars… I guess it's all part of the Halloween theme…"

"Is there anything else," William grumbled, "that I NEED TO KNOW, constable?"

"Err, uh, no sir, I don't believe so," George admitted sheepishly.

"Very good," William felt himself settling, "Stay alert… and focused, on the robber, George."

"You can count on me, detective. How's your party going?" George suddenly became curious.

"Back to it constable. I'm hanging up now, George," William tried to harbor his urge to be rude.

"Yes sir. Have fun at yo…"

William dropped the earpiece back into its receptacle.

)

Downstairs, Julia had announced the serving of the special 'Black Cat Halloween Cake.' It was relatively quiet in the Murdoch house, the cake so delicious that people's mouths were full. A reporter from the _Toronto Gazette_ had arrived with his photographer. Julia had invited them in, tolerating their ogling of her… clamshells, and offered them some cake as well. Expecting there would be pictures, she had asked Claire-Marie to put William Jr. back into his fishtail, building the small boy's anticipation by telling, "When your Daddy finishes his phone call, we're all going to go out by Daddy's popup monster and take a BIG, BIG picture," she shared her excitement with her little son.

Now she waited in the foyer for William. Mrs. Dewar approached, glad for the more intimate moment between the two of them. "My late husband would have so enjoyed your party, Dr. Ogden," she beamed with a seemingly eternal love for her husband, the man having passed some time ago. "He was fascinated with this holiday – loved the costumes… and he most enjoyed fishing, so you see, your undersea theme would have delighted him."

"You must miss him," Julia said, _and she battled inside herself with letting, or not letting, herself wholly imagine losing William._

"I dare say, doctor," Mrs. Dewar leaned close to tell it like a secret between them, "Ours was one of those special loves. I believe you understand."

The two women's eyes held for a moment, sharing the truth of it.

Mrs. Dewar cleared her throat, poked at a sliver of her cake on her plate with her fork as the two of them stood there in the foyer. "Some of your guests noticed the pair of you missing," she divulged. There was a kindhearted chuckle, "Like newlyweds," she shook her head.

 _Julia wallowed in having everyone know_. "Yes, isn't it wonderful," she whispered back the sweetness of it, yielding to the twinge of discomfort the awareness of their unconventionalness, their outrageousness, making her chuckle.

 _Cake. Thoughts milling in their heads…_

Julia spoke, "It's the perfect complimentary fit, William and I match so well, like chemistry, I've always said. Rare though, that someone completely understands what I mean by it. I wager you do, Mrs. Dewar. You have a scientific mind. I remember the first time I thought it – about the chemistry I mean, so many years ago. William and I had courted, and parted." Julia lifted an eyebrow at the woman, _for perhaps she was disclosing the more personal too easily._

 _But there was a wise aura to Mrs. Dewar, a wisdom that only comes with compassion and empathy, the kind that warrants trust._

"He had a case, and he wondered with me in the morgue about marriage proposals over telegraph wires..."

" _And odd, ironic, now_ ," Julia thought to herself, her mind twisting and forking like lightning, " _that William had later come to consider doing_ _ **just that**_ _himself."_ It hit her with such a burning ache- _to know now how much it had hurt him,_ William deciding NOT to send the telegram with his marriage proposal, instead bringing his ring, his resolve in risking telling her of his love for her, with him, when he came to her in Buffalo. He came because she had called. Brilliant, William Murdoch, he had solved her case, he had found the murderer plaguing her Children's Hospital in Buffalo. Then, they stood together on the steps in front of the hospital, her thinking it was goodbye, him trying to get up his nerve to drop down onto his knee. She knew now, for he had since read it to her from his journal, that in all of William's life he had never felt such a pain, an eternal loneliness, as when she told him she was engaged to another.

Julia blew out the pressure, releasing the hurt of the memories.

With a deep breath, she remembered that she had been explaining the reasons that she thought their love was like chemistry. "William and I are so much the same in so many essential ways, our values, our absolute joy in discovering and sharing about the world… science… It's like 3-dimensional puzzle pieces, like enzymes and substrates, we each stick up, and stand out as odd when compared to others, in these particular places. But, when William and I are together, put us next to each other, and those pieces that stick up are in unison, so that when we are together, nothing is left out in the cold, everything is nurtured and spurred to life. And where we differ, there, too, there is this perfect matching symmetry. Consider my rebelliousness..." Julia elaborated on the theory.

Mrs. Dewar smiled knowingly and nodded. _Truth be told, Dr. Ogden's boldness was probably what she most adored about Detective Murdoch's choice in a wife._

"And William's..." _Julia suddenly found she was stuck, working in her mind to find a less judgmental and critical word._ Failing, she gave up and said, "… stuffiness."

Her choice of the word received a soft chuckle and a loving and knowing look from Mrs. Dewar., a guaranteed fan of William's.

"He conforms so to expectations, to society's crazy, unjust sometimes… norms. And so, where I stick out, he lacks, and where he sticks out…" Julia suddenly thought of it, "…like with his devotion to his Faith, I lack, and we fill in each other's gaps so completely that not the tiniest piece of either of us has to exist in solitude…" Julia awed at the perfectness of it.

However, being a realist, when you got down to the nitty-gritty, Julia then considered, "Of course, nothing is that perfect. We fight… about… well, about his risk-taking with himself and the baby…"

Mrs. Dewar nodded.

"And jealousy is a big issue. He finds it to be unacceptable, to himself really, NOT to be true to me. He's so very loyal, and William lacks, or more, he's weak when it comes to self-reflection, and so he tends to deny that he finds other women attractive. And I, I'm ashamed to say, I take some pleasure in making him jealous, and so…"

Mrs. Dewar's brain flashed up a recent image in her mind's eye of a newspaper photograph. _In it, the doctor, looking so lovely dressed in an elegant ball gown, was dancing, but not with the detective, instead with some other man… a very, very handsome man…_

Both women turned – there was a thud, a sort of hopping, up above. It was William, in his fishtail, making it down the stairs. There was just enough room in the costume's design to allow William to lower one leg at a time down the 8-inches of each step. Arriving in the foyer, Julia informed him about the reporter wanting a picture. Mrs. Dewar soaked up the beauty of the two of them, watching from off on the side, as Julia dressed her husband, placing his crown on his head, fussing with his beard.

William muttered, "It still continues to bother me with its relentless escaping," bringing a delightful giggle from her chest. She handed him his kingly-sized trident fork, and he was transformed into a magnificent King Neptune.

Julia saw it in his eyes, worry. It was much more than just their guests now, who would see. She tilted to his ear, whispered to him that it would be alright. It was a Halloween costume. The world would understand.

)

The photograph would likely be wonderful, the Murdoch's in their undersea royalty costumes around their creative Halloween 'monster' at the center, all their guests tucked in close, smiling on the edges.

)

Many of the guests had thanked them and gone home. It was getting late and the party was drawing down. Conversations still bubbled in the living room though. Those that remained were having a good time.

It poured into the room, William Jr.'s wailing. The adults quickly ascertained that the children were fighting. There was a tussle just where the downstairs steps joined the foyer, apparently over William Jr.'s trident fork, and it was getting loud.

William Jr. hollered out ragefully, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" his complaints growing louder and louder until they petered out into pure crying instead.

The two-year old, no longer in his fishtail but still donning his little crown, rubbing his eyes, toddled desperately into the bright lights of the adult room, balling, "My tidon-fork. Mine…" rushing over to his closest parent – his Daddy.

William scooped him up, soothing, "I think you're tired, Little Man. It's making you grumpy." Attempting to lighten the mood, William joked, rubbing his son's belly playfully, "You're supposed to be a little fishy, not a crab…" William caught his wife's eye across the room. Wisely, he carried the crying child her direction, zigzagging in and out of guests here and there, each offering some form or another of advice.

"Bounce him," one woman said.

"He needs a gentle smack on his bottom," another suggested.

Nearing Julia he tried, the boy's crying only increasing in intensity, "You are simply tired Little Man. I see you rubbing your eyes…"

So typical for his age, William Jr. flared into his favorite word, "No! No!" he cried out through his tears, and then moved dangerously towards tantruming, squirming and squiggling, and yelling, "No! No tuck in! No bed!" over and over again. With that, William's glance to his wife became pleading.

Julia remained seated and reached her arms up. Gratefully, William handed the child down to her.

It was if the whole room exhaled, the mother and child together – SOFT – WARM, like a gentle pillow he nestled on her lap. Tenderly, Julia tucked him into her bosom, caressed his curls with her delicious fingers, soothing, comforting, her kisses on his head, close to his small ear, whispering to him, promising him love, and care… forever. "My little boy," she warmed, "You are having SO much Halloween fun, hmm?" The child's trauma eased. His breathing deepening, slowing. His red, red, face, fluttering in the gentle breeze of his mother's consoling kisses and strokes taking away the rush of the heat. "I know, Little One, I know. You worry that you'll miss something exciting. Take a breath, for me sweetie, please," Julia hushed him. "Listen, I promise, we'll have lots more parties, hmm? Even one next month for your birthday, with lots of children for you to play with. You'll have fun then too. But you are so, so tired, my Little one. Your Mommy knows…"

Pendrick came to stand next to William, his eyes, and everyone else's for that matter, focused down on mother and child. "She has a wonderful way," he tilted over and whispered. Reflection set in, Julia's soothing somehow settling everyone in the room. Pendrick spoke again, low, peaceful, he said, "I find myself wishing I could be that little boy and be loved like that."

Later, William would remember that moment and wonder at himself for not getting jealous or angry, for not remembering that James Pendrick had laid his wife back into a passionate kiss, albeit while supposedly crazed as the Lurker, but, right in that moment, right now, he did not. He felt compassion instead, and he whispered back, "My mother was like that." And somehow in that moment, everything made sense, everything was perfect.

William squatted down in front of his wife and child and quietly suggested, "A bath would ease him. He has been running around all night." He ran his fingers through the black curls at the back of his son's head feeling the dampness. "He's sweaty."

Julia teased, "A clammy fish, then," with a glint in her eye.

"Yes," he agreed with a smile.

Julia stood with the boy, no protesting to be heard. Claire-Marie was right there. She would take him upstairs, give the child a warm bath, prepare him for bed.

The father of the two older boys handed William his son's trident fork, apologizing.

"No need," William offered, "But perhaps it is best that no one has it for now," he decided. He took the coveted fork to the foyer and placed it, for now, high up in the hall closet.

)

Only a short while later, a naked toddler streaked into the living room, giggling and tottering his little bare body and his trail of watery footprints all around past couches and chairs and standing guests, drawing gasps abound. William Jr. had obviously been rejuvenated by his bath and was enjoying a hearty second wind.

Poor Claire-Marie, towel in hand, flurried around the corner, down from stairs, chasing behind him.

Abruptly caught, swooped up by Miss Cranston, William Jr. seemed to accept his fate quietly.

"Master Murdoch," Annie declared to the crowd, "Do you realize you have no clothes on?" she teased, her Halloween Mummy costume darkened by the absorbed flood.

The boy's embarrassed nanny closed in, spreading the towel wide. "I'm so sorry doctor… detective. He just took off…"

Suddenly, seeing an opportunity for a game, William Jr. began thrashing about in his captor's arms. "No, Nanny Monster! Le'go, le'go!"

Miss Cranston, a bit of a playful devil herself, made what was probably a mistake. But, without really thinking about it, she put the little child back down on the floor, releasing him.

 _Oh, his Daddy's voice was stern_ , "No more roughhousing. It's time for sleep."

Julia commented, scolding, "That's your fault, William," explaining to the group, "He always riles him up right before he's supposed to go to sleep," the complaint drawing a laugh from the onlookers.

"I confess it's true," William gave his wife his wrinkled-up-corner-of-the-mouth look.

The boy was surprisingly quickly caught in the towel, Claire-Marie apologized again.

Enid's husband announced, taking the pressure off of the nanny, "It seems the Murdoch boy is a bit of an exhibitionist," prompting the group to laugh again.

Quick, William's quip came, erupting the entire room into more rancorous laughing, "Now THAT he gets from his mother," raising a judgmental eyebrow at her, he had cockily returned the banter, earning himself an embarrassed shove from Julia.

With the child back upstairs and a few more guests heading on their way, the mood quieted, but the larger group still hovered together with the shared experience. It was Mrs. Dewar who asked it, sparking up the lively conversation once more.

"Your son," all eyes turned to the older woman dressed as Sherlock Holmes, "Did I see a large scar… on his shoulder?"

Everyone watched as William and Julia's eyes met. It was obvious that the moment reflected back to something important. The room followed along the line of sight as both parents glanced over to Dr. Isaac Tash. Isaac prepared to answer, _planning in his mind for the boundaries of what he would share._

But, before Isaac could explain, before he had the pleasure of telling the amazing story, Rosie Rosevear jumped into the center of the room, her eyes aglow with delight. "Don't you all know? Didn't you read about it in the papers?" she asked, building up their anticipation, "The detective performed surgery – a Cesarean section, nicked the baby with a scalpel while he was still in the womb…"

Mr. Hume called out, suddenly remembering the detail, "He practiced on a chicken first…" earning himself a laugh.

It turned out that all the guests did remember the story of how William Jr. had come to be in the world. It was part of the mystery and magic of Toronto's Favorite Couple, after all.

Then, the woman dressed as the black cat commented, "I thought the scar might have been hereditary," her eyes perused over William's bare chest once more. She started counting, pointing at each of the marks on him, "one, ( _from the arrow near his heart_ ), two ( _the meat-hook wound atop his clavicle_ ), three ( _a bullet hole in his left shoulder)_ , four…" ( _the injury to his forearm from when he fell from the fire escape)._

William's eyes jumped to Enid's. _She would recognize that one!_

Then Miss Rosevear began telling how William had gotten each of the various scars to the group.

"My, Miss Rosevear," Julia interrupted, stepping close to William, tucking her arm around him, instinctively knowing her husband would be uncomfortable with such attention, "You are quite abreast on William's history, it seems." _Gratefully, her plan worked._

Suddenly embarrassed, not an uncommon experience for Ruby Rosevear to get caught going out of bounds, she replied, "Oh, I know just about everything Murdochian, doctor."

"Murdochian?" Julia asked, with a giggle, "Is that a word?"

"Oh," Ruby blushed slightly, "Well, it is at the Murdoch Appreciation Society."

"I see," Julia said, giving William a raised-eyebrow look.

He wrinkled his mouth at her, and she giggled.

She returned her attention to the group. "William has seen many battles, it is true." Proudly, Julia added, "I guess it comes with being a hero."

"Here! Here!" Mrs. Dewar raised her glass, calling for a toast.

"To Detective Murdoch," Mr. Hume called out, raising his glass as well.

"And his incredible wife, Dr. Ogden," James Pendrick added.

"To the Murdoch's," the group clinked their glasses in appreciation.

)

It seemed the end of the Murdoch Halloween Party had come, only James Pendrick remained. William's mind wondered after his case. " _Probably the Howell's Howell-oween Bash was still going strong,_ " he reassured himself. " _The Reveron's probably haven't even left the zoo for home yet…_ "

The popup monster sounded outside…

Followed by a few male gasps and then some laughter.

William and Julia recognized the Inspector's voice immediately…

"Don't be such a scaredy-cat, Meyers! It's just Murdoch… You know the man. Always inventing things…"

Then George, footsteps on the front porch, closer to the front door now, "No need to punch it, sir. It's not real…"

They rushed to the front door just in time to see Terrence Meyers dive through the air, wildly tackling poor Murdoch's popup monster, embroiled in hearty battle with the beast. Wood cracked and crashed under the man's weight and splintered and creaked with each of the international spy's brawny blows.

"Well, at least we got to enjoy it before he destroyed it," Julia made an effort to appease her husband.

Once the three men were up on the porch and Meyers had quieted, it took everything George had to let the Inspector take the show.

"Murdoch! Good doctor," the Inspector began to tell, "The robber has been caught red-handed, as that annoying reporter, Paddy Doyle, came to call it…

George interrupted, "Not even giving you the credit for it that you deserve, detective. You were the one who thought to put the red dye pack in with the money! Not that reporter character! Why he even ended up being the Kissing Bandit, sirs!"

It was Julia this time, who got lost in her thoughts being stirred up by Constable Crabtree's meandering comments. She remembered _William coming to borrow the dye from her over in the morgue. She had been modeling her wedding veil for her sister, Ruby. The wedding dress was splayed out all over the morgue slab. Ironically fitting, she realized, in a way, now. William had seen her enjoying it. He had looked so… hurt. And she remembered the deep, deep ache, for her heart, too, had been so very, very broken…_

They got the three men inside, Meyers somewhat bloodied. The disheveled and battle-weary look was fitting with Meyers' Halloween costume, a pirate. It had become apparent to all involved that all three of the men had had a bit too much to drink, but Terrence Meyers was the most far gone of the bunch.

"A pirate?" Julia asked the spy, hurrying to get something to place under his newly lit cigar.

"I'm pleased you should ask…" Meyers slurred, his eyes swirling around before mostly settling on Julia, "You are truly lovely, doctor. Murdoch doesn't appr… re – re…" he swallowed, _or was it a burp_ , "abriate you enough." Meyers searched the room for Murdoch, figuring his forwardness with the man's wife might spur on a fight. His fists itched with the chance to punch that annoying, smug, Murdoch in the nose.

"William's gone to make you gentlemen some coffee," Julia shared.

"You were saying… a pirate?" she reminded, hoping to deter his urge to fight.

Meyers put his smelly cigar down in the dish, Julia rushing to straighten it to avoid starting a fire, and then he stared down confoundedly at his own body. He would explain, "I… most beautiful lady," and now it was Meyers who slobbered and drooled over the delicacy of the sight of Julia's magnificent breasts squashed so delectably tightly into those tiny, tiny, clamshells.

"Mr. Meyers, please," Julia complained. Thinking it would get the irritating man's attention off of her, she said, "Mr. Pendrick is a pirate too."

Pendrick jumped in to help, "The Tiger of Mompracem…"

It seemed then that all hell broke loose, Murdoch, and George and the Inspector bolting in from the kitchen, alerted by the ruckus.

Pendrick and Meyers twisted and writhed together wrestling and swinging punches and grunting with each effort on the floor.

Meyers, his neck grabbed and crunched by Pendrick's arm, bellowed, "I am the one! The only one who can be the Tiger of Mompracem! It is I, I who landed from that insidious rocket of yours in Borneo! I, who earned the right! It is I, who is Ranying - Supreme God, fallen from above. King of Borneo…"

Julia pleaded, "It seems they are dressed in the same costumes!"

"Oi! Break it up now!" the Inspector ordered, reaching in and grabbing a flailing limb. William and George helped, and the two men soon sat in chairs on opposite sides of the room. Coffee was abundant.

Julia doctored one of James Pendrick's wounds.

Finally, Murdoch was being caught up on the investigations, all the nonsense settled down. The robber had been apprehended breaking into the Reveron's home directly before the couple had arrived. He was caught red-handed, and he confessed. Remarkably, and quite good for the reputation and record of Stationhouse #4, he had even revealed where the jewels he had stolen on the previous two heists were hidden! He was in the cells.

Sally had gotten away. Meyers was furious and blaming Alan Clegg for losing her, temporarily flared up into a torrent upon the matter being brought up once more. It seems Sally had had a plan. She must have escaped after she had made a big show of touching the diamond, explaining her fingermarks on it…

The Inspector proudly handed off the fake to Murdoch to inspect, safely, it seemed, wrapped in a handkerchief in his pocket. Guillaume had been willing to let him take it to Murdoch, having already ascertained that Murdoch had been right all along about the jewel on display at the Riverdale Zoo being a fake.

Sally had hired a woman to wear a pink cat costume exactly the same as hers, setting up the unknowing patsy as a decoy, paying her to dance with a particular man, it turned out also paid by Sally Hubble, for the rest of the night. Her instructions had been to remain on the dance floor, moving constantly. She had been instructed specifically NOT to dance with Mr. Clegg or Mr. Meyers. It had worked well. Sally Hubble easily had a few hours head start.

William held up the sparkly, pink-hued gem to the light. "Julia," he asked her, not taking his eyes off the jewel, "May I have your ring?"

"Of course!" she awed more than just agreed, "If it is a fake, then my diamonds will scratch it!" she exclaimed, bouncing up on her toes and smiling broadly to the other men.

William's frown showed he was sincere in his hoping that he had been wrong. "Yes, it is a fake," he concluded.

Surprising them all, a broken, hobbliy-sort of cackling laughter sounded feebly from the front porch.

"Your monster's laugh, William!" Julia declared.

Murdoch scowled at Meyers. "I guess he broke that too," he said, standing and heading to the door.

Miss Cherry marched in with her usual intrusive, presumptuous saunter, explaining that she was not at all startled by the monster, having already known about it. But as a journalist, she was quite curious about what had happened to damage it so.

"George," William said, disappointment in his tone, "It seems Miss Cherry followed you here."

Everyone except the two wounded pirates were aware of Miss Cherry's tendency to abuse her relationship with George to get the inside scoop. Likely to deflect attention from her plans, the reporter offered an inside scoop of her own, although it was not good news.

Pulling off her gloves Louise Cherry said to the group, "I spoke with the Gazette reporter that was here earlier. He shared his idea for a headline with me." She paused for dramatic effect. Then spread her hands out presenting the words, "Murdoch's Frolic while Body-Dumper Killer Continues to Escape Justice."

Barely having a second to fret about the effect such a story would have on them, the wounded cackling played once more from outside.

Irresistible, William glared at Meyers again.

There was a flicker of regret across the spy's face.

This time William's odd alarm had been set off by the French Inspector, Marcel Guillaume.

"What 'as 'appened to your frightening monster, Monsieur Murdoch?" he asked stepping in. Being a playful and loving man by nature, Marcel could not resist laughing at the detective's frown…

"Mr. Meyers…"

"Oh," Marcel immediately interrupted, for after this evening at the zoo, he was himself extremely experienced with dealing with the drunken Canadian government man, "Say no more." Consolingly, he patted the detective on the back as they joined the others in the living room.

The Frenchman explained that he was there to ask for any leads or clues Murdoch could offer. Still, he found himself enchanted by the good-looking bodies of both William Murdoch and his wife, the good doctor. "Oh, Angelique will be so upset she missed your sexy costumes!" he declared. "I will have to tell her. She will pout," he kissed Julia's hand. "You look Magnifique, Julia… Magnifique!" Marcel dashed a tour with his eyes over William's chest, then returned his gaze to the reserved man's wife and whispered their shared secret in her ear, "And your 'usband, Julia… Magnifique, tres, tres Magifique… when 'e removes a few of his, 'ow you say, buttons."

Julia giggled, collapsing softly into the man, catching sight of a quick chastising scowl from William.

Murdoch was able to give Guillaume much. Not only did he know which hotel Catfrey was to stay in in Chicago, but he also knew the name the thief would likely use on the register – Peter Burke, and that Catfrey was there to add more "Cats" to his collection. There was a showing of a Japanese Kano artist from the sixteenth century, a Hasegawa Tohaku. He had painted exquisite Japanese screens entirely in ink on a delicate background of powdered gold. One such piece was the double screened, "Tigers and Bamboo," on display next month in Chicago.

As all of this would be taking place in the USA, Guillaume would be working with Alan Clegg now. Murdoch said goodbye with one final piece of advice, "Get in touch with Peter Burke, he works with the American government in Washington. He's the only man to ever catch Catfrey. They are cat-and-mouse rivals. He's your best chance."

)

Finally alone, the house locked up for the night, William thought to himself that they would be too tired for lovemaking. The moment he closed the bedroom door, however, he suspected he had been mistaken. Julia appeared to be… amorous. She had intentionally remained in her salacious costume rather than change into her nightgown, and there were candles lit, and she just absolutely took his breath away with her look, and the way she moved, and that lustful scratchy lowness in her voice.

"Well William, was it so bad having your wife wear these scandalous, tiny, clamshells all night?" she asked, her eyes watching his gorgeous brown eyes as they were finally granted permission to soak in the luscious look of her creamy cleavage.

Such a spark when he caught her eye, then a playful twinkle in his.

"I'm just glad they stayed on better than my beard did," he chuckled, giving her a winsome bow.

"Yes," she answered him, stepping closer.

Julia slipped close enough to him that her shells rubbed up under his pectoral muscles and she felt her insides wholly ignite and begin to churn. "It seems we'll make the headlines again, Mr. Murdoch," she warned her more modest husband, just before her lips moved that final millimeter, and she kissed him. Softly, she let the kiss go, changed the angle, "There will be photographs…" another kiss, her hands slipping and sliding and touring, "Me, in merely my clamshells…" _**Mmm**_ , this kiss was deep, the hunger growing, "You, nothing to button-up," she giggled. Breathless now, she broke off the more desperate kiss, "Scandalous again, I'm afraid."

William had lost his ability to speak three kisses ago. He just stood, fighting the pull of the gravity, fighting the fall, swirled so deliciously by the undertow.

 _My God, he looked so gorgeous like this_ , she thought, _such a strength, a primitiveness burning and flooding inside of him, just underneath, while right there at the surface, the fleeting, steamy, other truth of William Murdoch floated out in the open, undeniable, such a beautiful vulnerability. She couldn't possibly love this man more… not possibly._

 _That Halloween night, when the black cats crossed paths with the fishes, William and Julia's undersea world rumbled and roared, for there was a colossal lovestorm, whipped up into a blustery and turbulent frenzy, the elements mixed and curled and entangled with each other, pent-up forces charged and hungry, suddenly released, erupting in a virulent sea of blankets, powered and thrust upon by thunderous and pounding waves, right there in the Murdoch marital bed, for it was true, there was a remarkable and astounding chemistry between these two, and sometimes, often even, it resulted in an implosion of the highest magnitude. A profound and mysterious perfection was reached, right there, right then, melding two, becoming one, both now and forever, primordial and timeless, pure, solid and ephemeral, these two loved each other, heart, body and soul._

 _*Yet, in the darkness, unbeknownst to the lovers, the house… it still listened._

)) ((

 _ **And as for the dilemma, the agonous and tumultuous decision between the Lady, or the Tiger, it seems our heroes had not yet reached that fork. But… for Sally Hubble and for Neil Catfrey, it lingered ominously close. Neil had the Panther, but he did not have the Lady. And Sally? Well, she was who she was, and right now she had neither the love of her life, this handsome Cat-man who scared her so, for she had never felt such a pull, nor did she possess the precious pink treasure. But she had her freedom, and she told herself, that with that, she could accomplish anything.**_


	14. 14 BoringBoarish:Menagerie Under StarsT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 14: Boring and Boarish – A Menagerie Under the Stars

His grunting – rhythmical, strained – sounded repetitively, intermittently, with the metallic rattling of the weights on the ends of the bar as they reached their alternating locations of their seemingly incessant changing of direction, thrusting up, then slower, more controlled as they dropped down. His brain thought it, somewhere in the midst of his pushing through the agony, " _It was, in some ways, like having sex…_ _And it so enhances our lovemaking,"_ William added to his thoughts as he reminded himself of the glorious feelings of having Julia admire his body… _**want**_ his body.

" _One hundred!"_ his mind trumpeted the final number, and then he fought the urge to drop the weight into its stand, to let the merciless bar go and give in to the desire to stop the pain, to nurse and rub and soothe the pain. " _No!_ " he ordered himself, " _Control it to the end. Land silent_ …" as William grimaced, and he slowly lowered the bar into the curved indents of the weight rack.

Successful workout complete, he lay still for a moment, listened to his hurried and huge breaths, his thundering heart. " _Yes,_ " he thought, " _Similar_ ," giving himself a smile. He pushed up, stood, found the welcoming fluffy towel to rub off some of the sweat. _He would need a shower._

William's eyes traveled over his worktable as he dried off and caught his breath. _There were inventions waiting…_

Such a screeching in his head, like getting zapped, upon seeing _**IT**_ waiting there, so painfully incomplete, and his heart sank. This side of his drawing board, now almost dusty with the passage of time, it still held his failed scratchings from the Body Dumper case. The reminder chaffed at him. Unconsciously he frowned, and he yielded to its calling him. He approached the board and began, out of habit, to study it.

 **Body found at their body farm on September 23** **rd** **. Man in his late thirties. Naked, shotgun to the back of the head, no bullet…**

" _No face,_ " William reminded himself.

 **No scars, no tattoos, fingermarks not a match for any on record…**

" _Nothing but the bruise,"_ William remembered before he had arrived at its chalky-white drawing, feeling the tiniest tweak of pride, for it had been his innovative idea of using ultraviolet light to photograph the body's month-old injury that had yielded them even this paltry piece of evidence.

 _So odd, its shape… It was in some ways like a hand_ , William considered as he held out his own hand, palm up, next to the image. But surely too large… and made up of circles instead of the customary shapes where the palm and each of the four fingers would be… no thumb. The victim's femur, William knew it to be the strongest bone in the human body, had been broken by the mass of it, or perhaps it had been the sheer force, of whatever had struck the man. The victim had survived the encounter. Julia had admired the surgery done on his leg. " _Perhaps_ ," the thought occurred to him now, the bruise was not from a machine as he had always suspected, but rather from some large animal… " _Unlikely here in Toronto?"_ he shut down the train of thought.

The image of the blasting headline in the paper the next morning flashed in his mind's eye with a crash, from the day after their Halloween party, the day after the Howell's _Howell-oween Bash_ and his having had successfully conducted the capture of the Home Invasion Robber who had so terrified Toronto's toff class… And, despite the fact that it was _HIS_ work that would come to aid the French – particularly Inspector Guillaume, in retrieving the precious Pink Panther Diamond, and even in apprehending its thief – Neil Catfrey… And still, the press had badgered, using the photograph of him and Julia and their toddler son dressed in their Undersea Royalty Halloween costumes, proudly smiling next to his creative pop-up monster as fuel for the newspaper's tirade, " **Murdoch's – All Frolic and Fun, Yet Body Dumper Remains on the Run."** The frown across his face made it undeniable – it had hurt. He tried telling himself that his record was good, that this Body Dumper case was the only one all year he had not solved…

 _ ***** Murdoch really should have given himself more credit. Not only was the Body Dumper case nearly unsolvable, for identifying the victim had become essentially impossible without a face, left naked and dumped away from the scene of the crime, but beyond that his contributions to the Pink Panther Diamond case had been momentous. HE had figured out that the diamond on display at the Riverdale Zoo was already the fake, and that that fake had been made by Neil Catfrey and his sidekick known only as Schnozzy. HE had figured out that Neil Catfrey and this Schnozzy had absconded with the diamond, leaving a note for Sally Hubble (aka Sally Pendrick) to make a public display of touching the fake with her bare hands to explain the presence of her fingermarks on it – thus it was HIM who figured out that SHE was an accomplice in the crime. HE had figured out that Catfrey was headed for Chicago. HE had figured out what hotel Catfrey would register at once he got there. HE had discovered the alias Catfrey would use in Chicago – Peter Burke, the American government man that had been the only one to ever capture Catfrey in the past. Burke was Catfrey's nemesis, the only man Neil Catfrey truly admired, now maybe save for William Murdoch… that is after what had ended up happening with the Pink Panther Diamond case – ultimately with Catfrey having been caught, yet again, by Peter Burke, all because the French Inspector, Marcel Guillaume, had followed Murdoch's advice and sought out Burke, all this disaster solely because Catfrey had happened to cross paths with the famous Toronto detective – the one other man in the world that had managed to light Sally Pendrick's fire, to be gifted the seductive woman's nude portrait… the one man in the world besides Catfrey himself.**_

 _ **William could never have known the roles that irony and fate had played in his, now famous, international success – for the second time it turned out, after William's having had previously become famous for saving the Queen's life back in Bristol England all those years ago. William could not have predicted that when Sally would escape to Chicago to meet Catfrey, as they had planned together, she would not find him there, and she would conclude that Catfrey had betrayed her. Catfrey, however, was a no show, not because he did not love Sally, NOT because he had chosen the Panther over the Lady, not even because, just as had happened two years prior to William himself back when he and George had gone undercover as hobos into the Jungle, Catfrey had been caught by a depraved American policeman, known as Flannel Bull, and Catfrey had almost become victim to the policeman's forced sexual assault. No. Rather, Catfrey had been compelled to remain in the small American town AFTER he had escaped Flannel Bull's perverse attack, in order to spring Schnozzy, who Flannel Bull held in the cells as bait to recapture Catfrey, but also because Flannel Bull, unknowingly, had confiscated the Pink Panther Diamond itself with Catfrey's luggage and held it in the police precinct evidence locker. Ironically, Catfrey too had escaped Flannel Bulls' assault, as had William back when he was at first caught by the very same brute in that old, rickety barn in the hobo Jungle, but in Catfrey's case he had escaped being victimized with the help of the woman Flannel Bull perpetrated all of his sexual violations with – the very same woman Flannel Bull had so lecherously whispered about in William's ear back in the Jungle – "**_ **Mary's going to like you…** _ **" Mary had been the one to help the very handsome Neil Catfrey escape from Flannel Bull's jail cell, for Mary had been charmed by the man.**_

 _ **And, as fate would have it, by the time Catfrey made it to Chicago, all he found waiting for him in the hotel room where he was to have met up with Sally was an old, empty wine bottle – a symbol between himself and Sally of their whirlwind romance. On the wine label was the name, "Neuf Vies," (Nine Lives) and the picture showed a cat facing its tenth death, somehow Catfrey's life with her seeming to complete its circle. Peter Burke and Inspector Guillaume had found Catfrey there, despondent, sitting on the floor in the empty hotel room, Pink Panther Diamond in his pocket, old wine bottle in his hands, abandoned, lost forever to his true love. There had been no fight left in the man. And, also ironically, just as before, Sally had gotten away, she had her freedom. She remained at large.**_

 _ **And now, there in William's workroom, on the other side of his drawing board, there were only the cloudy eraser marks where the mapping out of the latest two big cases had been, the Home Invasion Robberies and the theft of the Pink Panther Diamond. All the sundry clues each wiped away, no longer needed, even the clue that had linked the two cases – the listening devices in the purses, the purses of the robbery victims… and in Julia's purse as well, that one devious listening device intended to be used by Catfrey for spying on the 'Tiger' the one and only perceptive and wily Detective William Murdoch, gone now, insignificant now. *****_

In her arms, head rested on her shoulder, William Jr. held on to his grogginess. She had woken him from his nap to keep the toddler on schedule, in the hope that he would be sleepy at his bedtime. He nestled in contently, _Mommy home… Daddy home_ , the little one was happy. Julia paused at the threshold into William's workroom, seizing the moment she had been granted to watch her husband, her lover, from afar. He contemplatively studied his blackboard, his line of sight aimed away from the door, only his peripheral vision would be able to see her there. With a guilty thrill she decided as she observed him, she had been undetected.

He had been lifting weights, he was sweaty, and still a bit winded. Her eyes traveled the contours of his face in profile. Amazing how his dark, thick, long eyelashes were so delectably noticeable even from this distance. Her perusal moved lower, only to be caught, with a delightful torqueing in her womb, as she thought to herself, " _My, William Murdoch does fill up an undershirt nicely_." His workout attire on this particular Saturday consisted of his baseball pants and a close-fitting undershirt. Both garments allowed for William's better assets to stand out. Suddenly, a flash of a memory fired in her mind, drawing her attention. She had been so close to wedding Darcy at the time, and she had been asked by the teenage girls at the school where the young victim had been found to read _**Dracula**_ , and she had found herself deliciously aroused by the book. It had troubled her though, at the time, that her mind always went to imaginings of being with William – not of being with her fiancé, Darcy, whenever the sultry fantasies intruded. It had been so plainly obvious that she was still in love with William, and the blatant realization now twinged her with a reminder of guilt for deciding to go through with marrying Darcy in the end. Julia sighed, and moved past it. Returning to the memory, she recalled that William had requested that she come to his room at Mrs. Kitchen's house in the middle of the night, surprising her with the request. The young girl, Arlene, whom Julia had been certain had become infatuated with William, who ended up being the murderer when all was said and done, had shown up at William's place claiming to have been bitten by the vampire. William had called Julia there that night because he had needed her help. Even now, all these years later, after having married the man, despite her having had made love with him so many, many times, Julia still felt the urge to gasp, for the memory was so realistic, of her forcing herself not to let her eyes drop down over William's body when she had first come into his room that night, unprepared for finding William dressed in merely an undershirt. Rare, him not in a suit and tie, this forbidden view had been outright scrumptious. _My God, the man was absolutely gorgeous_ , and her insides and her heart, and she would swear to it, even her soul, had screamed for him. She had thought at the time to herself that, with William looking THAT GOOD, most assuredly poor young Arlene would have swooned beyond the limits of self-control. She was quite tempted to collapse herself. She had made herself toughen up, telling herself that William needed her, suspecting it was more so for an adult female presence than for her medical expertise…

Julia found herself landing back in the here and now. She spoke, alerting William to their presence in his doorway, "Hard to believe that was three months ago, isn't it?"

William turned his head and focused on her. Lovely, his smile in response. Yet, so quickly, he reached up and rubbed his brow, remembering his fretting over confronting his failures in solving this one case… a case that seemed to be doubly important because the victim's body was dumped at THEIR Body Farm, and triply so because the press had been so awful to them about, not just the dangers of their "morbid" Body Farm, but also about the scandals involved with their wanting to adopt a second child.

She elaborated, "Next week I'll be taking my class back for the winter solstice… Just the day after William Jr.'s birthday."

William worried to himself that perhaps this 'Body Dumper' intended to time his killings with the seasons. His mind flickered the dreaded image of Julia and her students finding yet another victim lying in wait on the first day of winter, and he wondered if there would be another for the spring equinox, and then the summer solstice as well… The thought deepened William's frown.

"William," Julia's voice beckoned with its strength of resolve, already soothing, "You cannot let one unsolved case bother you so. This was a banner year for you, detective. Only one unsolved case. National acclaim for finding the stolen Pink Panther Diamond – AND its thief. You're a national hero, William." With such power and tugging, her expectant face held to his, her smile warmed the room when he yielded and wrinkled a corner of his mouth, bashfully admitting to her that he preferred her way of looking at the truth.

She walked up to him and then he stepped in closer. William tilted his head, preparing to kiss her…

"Oh, I think not, detective," she scolded, arguing, "You are… um, there is a lack of appeal…" Julia's hands fluttered about as she scowled her face, "you in this sweaty state, husband."

His big brown eyes dropped for a second down onto the baby in her arms before he leaned in even closer to her and whispered cockily, "It didn't seem to bother you last night."

Julia bantered back, "That, detective, is because we were BOTH quite… well… worked up into a lather, now, weren't we?" and she adored and basked in his subtle, but ever so present, blushing. Changing the subject, she said, "I think you should shower with this little one," Julia switched the baby to her other hip, rousing him, "It's too cold and rainy to go to the park. He needs an adventure…"

William was game, reaching out for his son. "What do you say, Little Man… you and Daddy? It'll be like going under a waterfall," he encouraged.

) (

Whenever possible, William served as the chef for their Saturday dinner. Tonight he was preparing a favorite – Texas-style chili con carne. He had discovered the spicy southern treat when he and George were working on a case undercover as hobos looking for work in the meatpacking industry in Chicago. He was happily cooking up a pot of the special meal. With him in the kitchen was William Jr. The Murdoch two-year old was happy and entertained, _William noted to himself proudly_ , under the kitchen table playing in a 'hiding spot.' Unfortunately, it was not the cleanest of spots for the little boy to play after he and is Daddy had had splashed and played, and even managed to soap and shampoo and rinse as well, under the cascading fun of the shower earlier. Julia had helped get the toddler dried off and dressed and then she had asked for some time to work on the upcoming Coroners Convention. Soon, the smell of William's delectable concoction would waft down into her lab and draw her up.

He found he enjoyed cooking, and his mind wandered off. Abruptly, likely spurred on by his earlier confrontation with his drawing board and the Pink Panther Diamond case, flashes fired through his brain from back when he almost caught Sally Pendrick all those years ago, shotgun in his hand, running after her wagon loaded up with the microwave deathray machine. Still he shuddered at his own shock that Sally would shoot her husband, fire a bullet directly into James Pendrick who stood right next to him…

"Oh my goodness, that smells delightful, William," Julia's voice swept him out of his thoughts.

"And you, Little One," Julia leaned down to inspect under the kitchen table, "Are you hiding from Daddy?" she playfully asked.

A tiny index finger leapt to the child's lips. "Shh," he shushed her.

Julia mirrored his gesture and nodded her head.

William found himself grateful for the interruption. The moment felt like one of those rare perfect times when everyone involved, except for the baby, was aware of how wonderful everything was while they were living it.

Julia had finished her speech for the Canadian Coroners Convention. She was excited, William too. It was her first national award. She read the speech to William while he scurried about, stirring, and tasting, and flavoring, and setting the table. So lovely, the smells, the warmth… their young son playing under the kitchen table, an occasional thunk of falling wooden blocks or tiny whirring playing noises giving his seclusion and contentment away.

Julia hesitated before she went on with reading the next line of her masterpiece to him, suddenly remembering William's lack of morgue humor. "William," her voice warned, "I feel I should prepare you. This next part is meant to be funny." She eyed him mischievously, for, since the day she had first met him, morgue humor had been something Detective William Henry Murdoch seemed incapable of appreciating. Her eyes settled back down on the handwritten speech in her hands and she read on, "The first research paper I worked on with some of these bright female university students was based on using differences in soil composition to properly determine time of death. This had turned out to be important, because, ironically, when my students and the local constabulary had been tasked with using evidence, such as unusual areas of high plant growth, to find the location where I had hidden the one and only body I had buried some months earlier, the student and constable teams continued to find body after body after body, none of which were the body I had buried. There was obviously something afoot, of that, the extra bodies were a…" she paused, alerting her husband that it was coming, then delivered her pun, "… a dead giveaway."

Despite having had decided to try his best to be a good sport, to laugh and make an effort to see whatever it was that she ended up saying to be humorous, it turned out that William could not betray himself in the end. _It was simply not funny. He was sure of it._ He blew out the pressure he felt through pursed lips and reached up and rubbed his brow.

 _Inside, Julia giggled._

She would use the situation to torture him. "Don't you get it? There were so many bodies it was like a _DEAD giveaway_ ," she pushed.

William dashed a look at her, then his beautiful eyes darted back to stirring the steaming pot. "Yes," he said, "It's a pun. There are two different meanings to your punch line… too many bodies, like they must be giving them away, and the bodies being there providing evidence – 'a dead giveaway,' that some person, or some persons, had killed them and chosen to bury the bodies on our property where they would likely go undetected." William sighed.

 _Julia fought hard not to laugh, stiffening her mouth at edges to keep from curling a smile._

William made his best effort, "Your audience will like it, Julia, I'm sure," he said, and then wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her and she knew he was admitting that he was nothing of the sort.

Julia thought to herself that she would try reading the joke to Miss James… or she could even phone Emily about it. The decision made, she felt resolved and said, "Well, thank you for trying, William," and walked over to him and cupped his cheek. Her thumb stroked over his lips, and the two of them hovered there for a moment.

Suddenly an idea hit him! Julia thought she heard him gasp, stepping back to examine his expression.

Unable to deliver his hard-sought-after joke without his face glowing, he pushed to hurry before he gave his devilish plans completely away. "Of corpse," he worked not to oversell it. Yet, William Murdoch rewarded himself with a chuckle.

"Oh William, that's awful!" Julia declared with such glee. "But, I dare say, your efforts have earned you a kiss, detective," her voice suddenly seductive and then she stepped back in close.

"Good," he replied, clamping his lips together, satisfied.

After his soft, quick kiss, Julia went back to reading him the rest of her speech. All in all, it was a job well done, the yummy dinner afterwards like icing on the cake.

Over dinner they made finishing touches to their plans for William Jr.'s birthday party next weekend. The parents of all of the children who had been at their Halloween party last month had agreed to come. There would be games, Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey was always popular, and cake, and Julia had even hired a clown to come to entertain them all.

The meal drew to a close as the Murdoch's indulged in their desert – Eloise had made them a delicious chocolate cake. William Jr. had quickly finished eating his smaller piece and asked for another. Having much of his larger piece still left on his plate, William walked over to collect the youngster out of his highchair and bring him over to sit on his lap, allowing the boy to 'help him' eat the rest of his. Already full to the brim himself, William put his fork down and watched on as William Jr. made a mess of eating the cake. _He felt such a warm happiness flowing all around and through him._ Admiringly, cherishingly, William fiddled with the toddler's dark, coily curls. _He loved this child so_ , he soaked it all in as he leaned down and inhaled the boy's clean scent from their fun shower earlier, and he kissed the boy's head.

"Looks like you need a haircut, Little Man," William announced. His eyes lifted and met his wife's.

Their son had reached nearly the age of two and was yet to have had a haircut.

"Perhaps Mrs. Kitchen…" William suggested with an air of caution. It had always managed to play in the back of his mind whenever the topic of Mrs. Kitchen came up – and especially when it came up along with the topic of haircuts, for it had been kept a secret from Julia for so long, that he got his haircuts from Mrs. Kitchen. And to make things worse, the matter seemed to get wrapped up with Julia's discovering that he looked forward to Mrs. Kitchen's Beef Stew, and that stood in opposition to Julia's rather un-stellar successes at cooking herself, particularly whenever she was in charge of making toast.

Taking to the haircut idea at once, Julia beamed, "He'll look as handsome as his Daddy for his birthday party!" Haircuts an excuse, Julia gave in to the urge to touch, reaching over to run her fingers, first through her husband's hair, then through her little son's. Their baby's hair had always intrigued her so. She reasoned that it was because his hair, more so than his other traits – like his gorgeous _Williamy_ eyes, and his willowy body type which reminded everyone of her, their baby's hair seemed to best capture both of them, both of his parents' traits, the rich, deep black color from William, and the wispy banana curls from her.

"Good. It's settled then…" William concluded contently, "You, Little Man…" he leaned over to try to catch his son's eyes, "will come with me to Mrs. Kitchen's after Church tomorrow."

Julia cheered to the little boy, "How exciting… You're going to get a 'big boy' haircut."

"Speaking of being a big boy," William added, "I suggest you wash down some of that cake with some milk."

Julia piped in, "Oh my, from the big 'Papa Bear' glass." _A part of her began praying that the little one wouldn't spill it._

 _Oh, it was wobbly_ , William Jr. stretching his neck up to its limits to reach high enough to press his upper lips over the edge of the glass… He held on to it with both hands as he tilted it just the right amount and he slurped in the creamy liquid. _He was thirsty – very, very thirsty._ There was a satisfied, "Ahhh," as he successfully finished and safely placed the cup upright again on the table.

Proudly he yelled it out, bouncing up and down on his father's lap, his feet taking up their rhythmical, quick kicking with anticipation, and William jumping to spread his legs to avoid being belted. "Like Daddy!" he declared, and then added, "Shave too?"

Without really considering it, William said no, but then Julia coaxed, "I'll bet Mrs. Kitchen has a nail-file about with the perfect amount of sharpness to serve as a razor for a two-year old… hmm?"

William agreed and just as soon as he did, Julia felt herself having reservations. Her motherly instincts, or perhaps it was her psychiatry training, warned, told, that small children could become quite frightened by pieces of themselves being cut off. _Perhaps she should go along_. But, it was perfect, William and his son going together, as a MAN thing, she worried. _She would talk to William about it later,_ she decided.

Just then… Julia saw William notice…

The strain, the surprised, grossed-out expression on William's face as he spied the milk glass, now covered in brown smears and smudges from their little toddler's chocolaty fingers, the top of the glass wholly drowned in a muddy pool of lip-marked chocolate-and-milk mush, all with a good helping of cake crumbs stuck in the goop.

Julia erupted into laughter. "It was your idea, Daddy Bear," she teased.

"True," he replied simply, accepting it with his customary corner of the mouth wrinkle. "I think you got more cake on the glass than in your stomach," he added, deciding he had had enough milk anyway.

) (

It had helped, all those times William had pretended with William Jr. that he was shaving, because Julia's instincts had been right – William Jr. was terribly upset when his first wisp of hair fell onto the white, fluffy towel draped over his tiny, two-year old shoulders. His mother was wise, and she quickly suggested, her silky, smooth touch caressing his cheeks, "Little One… Let's do the shaving part first, hmm?"

Almost immediately he was able to sniff back his tears. _Daddy had just gone before him, and Daddy had had a shave. Now it was his turn to be a little man, as his Daddy always called him_. "Yes, Mommy," he managed to say.

So tenderly, she wiped the salty dampness from his reddened cheeks.

"The shaving cream is still warm," Mrs. Kitchen encouraged, "You're going to love this, Master Murdoch."

Disaster averted, Julia and William stood together arm in arm and watched on and cheered the young boy's dashing looks and his being so grown-up, as their son had his first shave and a haircut in his whole little life. A good sign that things were going well, proof that his mother was able to relax, a few minutes into that second attempt at her son's haircut, feathery tufts of his black curls sprinkled about on the towel and mixed with his father's hairs on the floor around him, Julia's mind meandered. She thought back to just a few hours before. _They had accompanied Mrs. Kitchen on the walk to her house from Church_. Even after they had moved into their new house, William had stayed at the same Catholic Church, the one in his old neighborhood from back when he was a boarder at Mrs. Kitchen's. It had been more than a month now that Julia had been attending Sunday mass with him – that they had been going to Church as a family. Still feeling a twinge of guilt about doing so, for her motives behind attending were not religious, or even to support William. They were more selfish, but she took some solace in the fact that her motives were out in the open, that both Father Clemmons and William were fully aware that she was driven by a deep longing to adopt another child, and as luck would have it, their final hope appeared to be to do so through a Catholic orphanage. Now though, her mind lingered on her conversation in the confessional booth with Father Clemmons earlier. The young priest had won her over completely, years ago, if the truth be told. But now… now that she knew the man even better, and she had come to see that he was authentic, and empathic, she realized what a generous and judicious man he truly was _. "He would have made a fantastic psychiatrist_ ," she thought, " _Incredibly wise and insightful for his years… Marvelous the way he teaches rather than preaches…_ _Quite handsome too_ ," she embarrassed herself with the unexpected interruption.

Quickly steering off of the disturbing topic of Father Clemmons' good looks, Julia thought back to this morning. It still seemed odd to think about _HER_ partaking in the ritual of giving confession, but she had decided to do so… to better engulf herself in the entire experience, for if she was going to do it, she had figured she might as well try to do it wholeheartedly. She had shared with Father Clemmons, through the confessional meshed-screen this morning, that her troubles throughout the week, her struggles, had been, as had become customary she also admitted for the umpteenth time, with the 4th commandment. As a result of her taking-on the practicing of Catholicism, even if she did so for unauthentic reasons, Julia Ogden had become quite conscious of her coveting, particularly her coveting of women who were able to have babies. She had found herself regularly becoming saddened when watching siblings playing in the park, or even fussing and fighting with each other in the store. The self-awareness caused her shame, but she had come to accept it with the help of Father Clemmons.

For his part, Father Clemmons had found it interesting that William and the woman the man loved so very much that their romance seemed to be guided by the stars and even epic, both battled with the same commandment – the 4th one. The priest could not know that William had opened up to his wife on the topic, disclosed to her through the couple's sharing with each other of their personal journals, that _HE_ had fought, nearly hourly – **for years** , with his coveting of Dr. Darcy Garland's wife. Thus, it was because of their lovely habit of reading to each other from their journals, the thought crossed Julia's mind now, _how ironic it was, her and William's parallel paths._

Mrs. Kitchen's delighted voice pulled at Julia's attention, the older woman declaring triumphantly, "The most handsome young man in all of Toronto!" as she poofed the towel off of her tiny subject.

William proudly hoisted his boy up high in the air and bounced him about. "Well done, Little Man!" he touted. Resting the boy down on his hip, Julia reached over and stroked her fingers through their son's freshly cut hair.

"Oh my, Mrs. Kitchen… You have done marvelously! Would you like to see in the mirror?" she asked her little boy.

"Yes Mommy," the little one replied full of anticipation.

Upon seeing himself reflected back in the looking glass, he exclaimed, obviously happy about the result, "Like Daddy!"

It was true. Now that his hair was short, and the curls that he had inherited from his mother were unseen, William Jr., with his big, chocolaty brown eyes, and his long, long eyelashes, and dark hair – he looked so very much like William Murdoch.

It was interesting to Julia, the conflicting emotions stirring inside of her, _loving that their son looked so much like the man she loved more than any other in the universe, and also now looked so much less like her._ She quickly grasped onto the happier feelings, beaming, "Yes, my Little One, now you too are the most, most, handsomest man in all the world, just like your Daddy." Her arms requested him, and William handed him over.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kitchen," William bowed winsomely to the older woman, eliciting an even bigger smile to grow on her face.

"You are more than welcome, William… more than welcome," Mrs. Kitchen replied contently. "We'll be showing him off next weekend at his party," she reminded. She turned her attention onto William Jr. "I hear there's going to be Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey!" she cheered, clasping her hands together gleefully in front of her chest as if applauding, "I love that game!"

"Me too!" William Jr. yelled out.

Julia caught Mrs. Kitchen's eye and admitted, "Amazing really," she giggled, "He's never played the game as of yet."

"Well, he WILL love it then," Mrs. Kitchen solved, joining in the chuckle.

It had been a great Sunday.

) (

 _ **Master Murdoch's birthday finally arrived!**_

William and George and Julia and Emily found themselves convened for a moment amidst the fun and the horseplay and the mayhem of William Jr.'s two-year old birthday party in the background, all around the cake and the prizes and the treats laid out before them on the large dining-room table. Being the author in the room, it was not surprising that it was George Crabtree who noticed Julia's contemplative mood. He offered her a penny for her thoughts and all eyes turned to her as she lifted her eyes and grounded, coming back from wherever it had been she was imagining in her head.

"It was the table," she started to explain, the strange statement hooking them in. Julia sighed, for her emotions were deep. "It's ironic, I guess. I find myself thinking of the ironies of life and death… around this time of year," she said, her large blue eyes settling on, nestling into, William's warm brown ones, "It's an anniversary of sorts for me," she offered the explanation, "of my father's death."

William's mind forked and thundered away firing down multiple inner connections. _Back then he had let her go to the lake-house alone, after she had been summoned there by her father. It had felt uneasy between the two of them, her holding her eyes so very firmly to his as they had spoken briefly in the bullpen in Stationhouse #4, her gesturing at the time stressing the importance of what it was she was saying to him, Julia asking him if he didn't have something he wanted to ask her father. How dense of him, he knew now, that he did not grasp then that she was hinting at his proposing – AGAIN – that they marry._ At the same time a different neural pathway in his brain ran to find _other significant events that had happened at THIS time of year, arriving at the birth of their son. Julia had almost died then, William Jr. too…_

George drew everyone's attention, his words speedy in the effort to get the words out the second he had come to remember the details. "Oh yes!" he exclaimed, "It was during the case in which we first encountered Roger Newsome… and the math puzzles. The death by snooker ball…"

"Of course!" Emily's memory sparked. Emily suddenly remembered something else, _her challenging coroner's dilemma of finding a way to remove a snooker ball wedged in the victim's mouth had been just after that loathsome Leslie Garland had tortured them so cruelly with his trick!_ She declared, the horror of the whole thing plain in her voice, "Oh my, and we had just worked out that James Gillies had actually died, that it was NOT James Gillies who had sent you the threatening photographs and the note…" her eyes shot to Julia's, "It couldn't have been him… because he had died right after he jumped off that bridge into the river! Remember…" her eyes then meeting Detective Murdoch's, grateful for his nod. She looked back to Julia and remembered more, "We had thought he was still alive… when we were stranded on that island with the axe murderer!"

Julia tried to find the comfort inside of herself – knowing once and for all that such a horrid man as James Gillies was dead. She thought to herself how fortunate they were not to have to worry about the dastardly deeds of William's treacherous nemesis, especially now that they had been blessed with a little son whom the deranged man would surely have stalked in an effort to terrorize them… Julia glanced at William, and she smiled for having been touched by his gentle and reassuring nod. Her eyes dropped back down onto the table and the minds of the group circled back to her earlier comment.

Julia's tone weighed solemn as she disclosed, "I performed my father's autopsy on this table…"

And with that William remembered, and everyone else came to understand, that _this_ was the _same_ table that had been in the Ogden family's lake-house at the time.

And William stepped over and put his arm around his wife. He too remembered it well, _finding the needle mark in the skin, then learning of Lionel Ogden's tortured love affair with Caroline Hill, and his own heart being driven by the blatant message behind their tragic story – that true love CAN happen, and knowing then, that for himself and Julia_ _ **it had happened**_ _, and that he needed to seize the day or suffer the loss of her forever…_

George blurted the words out before thinking of the consequences, "A bit gory to think of um, _THAT…_ err, thing," his face wrinkled in distaste imaging the sights and smells of a body being opened up there in front of him, "happening on THIS table… I mean, err…" Suddenly he desperately wanted to backpedal but could not, "I mean, uh, considering the birthday party going on…" George widened his arms and gestured towards the dining-room doorway through which so many others were enjoying the party, "and little William Jr., and everything."

And with that graphic image of knowing that there had been, in the past, blood and guts all over this table hitting their minds, every one of them remembered the OTHER night that someone had been cut opened on this same table, when Julia had gone into labor during the humungous snowstorm two years prior – such a tremendous storm coming early that year, the date only December 20th, and she would not make it to the hospital as planned for her Cesarean section surgery with Dr. Tash, and because of that she would die right there on this same table, and the baby inside of her too. And that night William had had her in his arms as he sat behind her on this same table comforting her, and gratefully he had imagined it then, the spark being one of the many lightning paths of images that happened in his brain of the myriads of possibilities playing out in his imagination in twisted lights right before him, as they do sometimes in his unique and brilliant mind, his soul unwilling to accept the unbearable loss of everything valuable and dear in his life without a fight – _HE would perform the surgery_. Emily had arrived with George later that night only to finish sewing-up the final stitches of the procedure. The nearly impossible task had been done, fate would have it that way, for these two, for William Murdoch and his soulmate, Julia Ogden.

So much had happened… on this table.

)

Master Murdoch started his third year asleep, thoroughly happy and exhausted from his wonderful birthday party. His parents had tucked him in, and then, _so lovely when this happened_ , they had stayed for a while together, wallowing in their cherishing of their child. Eventually, they moved on. His father going down into the living room to sit back and read in his reclining chair near the fire, his mother taking a shower and readying for the next day.

Out of her shower, Julia had an idea, and she was certain her husband would love it. It was similar to a gift she had given him on their first Christmas together after being married – well, ALMOST had given him, because unfortunately, William had generously opened their home to a very lonely Constable Crabtree. The surprise this time would be WHY she was giving him a gift at all. He would not be expecting it, and that was much of the thrill she felt in giving it. She found the perfect sheet, a red silk scarf for the bow. Wrapping her bare skin in the cool fibers of the bedsheet, her mind dashed off on a tangent, to a memory, a delightful, delightful memory, of _William appearing before her dressed similarly – naked and toga-wrapped in a sheet. She had called him her "Greek God" that night_. He had been so chivalrous, stayed on her couch after she had been troubled, traumatized after having been attached by the dangerous serial killer – the villain posing as a detective from London, but all the while actually being the deranged man the world most feared – Jack the Ripper (aka Harlan Orgill). Julia had defended herself, killed the man with a pair of scissors, the event serving in her mind as proof that she was correct in her suspicions that it was pathologists who were truly the deadliest people in the world. William had spent the night in her home at her request, helped her with her nightmares. _She had gotten so very close to falling head over heels in love with him that night…_

Her eyes found her own image in the mirror. Sly, sultry her smile reflecting back from the glass. "You had best look out, detective," her inner voice rasped lustfully.

 _William was a gorgeous man, but my God, when he was in flickering golden lowlight – and aroused… Mmm-mm, how her insides twisted and gushed with drenched with wanting him._

Julia clicked off his reading lamp, felt his eyes all over her as she tossed the picnic blanket out like a floating cape and guided it down to the floor in front of the fire.

"Julia," his voice wondered, but under the curiosity there was nothing but heat.

She took his hand, urged him to stand. Her eyes mesmerized him as she said, her voice lush and low, "I thought you might want to unwrap your present…"

"Present?" he questioned his own voice smoky and dry, dizzy, for so quickly words were flying away from him.

"Yes, William," she felt herself weakening, tugged so by his dark eyes, "Remember, without you, _**Dr. Murdoch**_ , there would not be a BIRTHday for our son," she explained. "You gave us this birthday. You saved the day, William… you saved our world, that night," her lips so close they touched his ear, her breath rattled, hummed, humid and hot, into his being, soaked into him, and he yielded, took her in his arms and he kissed her with a passion that spun them wildly over their edges.

It was a happy birthday, it truly, truly, was.

) (

The Inspector approached Dr. Ogden, walking down the ramp into the morgue theater, taking his hat in hand, joining it with his cane. The doctor's eyes twinkled and widened with surprise, for his coming to the morgue, especially alone, was uncommon.

"Inspector," she greeted, jumping to stand from where she was sitting organizing chemicals on the shelves. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" she wondered.

"Doctor," he greeted and then quickly got to the point. "Your husband has been voted by the Ontario Constabulary Board…" Thomas Brackenreid paused, _for it was good news, but it worried him at the same time –_ hence his reason for being there. "Dr. Ogden," he started again, using a different approach, "I have been instructed by the Ontario Constabulary Board to assure that you would be able to… Oh bloody hell!" the Inspector cursed at his discomfort.

"Inspector?" Julia stepped closer, urging, "Truly, the suspense is killing me. The Ontario Constabulary Board what!?"

"They want to give your husband Policeman of the Year…" and he rushed so fast to make sure she heard the exception, "BUT, they think he will be too boring when he gives his speech, going on and on about some battery charge, or some wave of light or some such thing as he does, and so they want me to get YOU to make sure he doesn't… err, write a boring speech," he finally bluntly explained the situation.

Julia bounced up on her toes with pride and excitement. "William will be SO excited!" she declared, her face gleaming.

"Yes, doctor… very exciting… But, um, well…" and with that the Inspector's lips clamped tight, _for he wanted to avoid insulting the man, but the truth of it was undeniable._ His expression melted into relief when Julia laughed…

"Inspector," her giggling rippled in her voice, "I understand," she reassured, "Truly I do."

"Thank you doctor. I thought you might," he nodded back at her, almost winked. _For a moment,_ _Thomas' mind noticed how pretty Murdoch's wife was, this pistol of a woman…_

He pushed himself to fulfil his duty as assigned by the group of stuffy men who had sent him, "So, you will help to keep him from… I mean, you will save our beloved detective from himself, and help him write a speech that will at least keep the crowd awake?" he asked, sprinkling his request with a charming dash of humor.

"I will do my best," Julia replied, then wondered, "Does William know?"

The Inspector chuckled. "The board wanted me to talk to you first," he admitted, the fact of it revealing the degree of concern the Ontario Constabulary Organization's leaders had with Detective Murdoch's tendency to run on and on about something or other that no one else understands, not to mention really even cares about. Brackenreid cleared his throat and then suggested, "Perhaps you would like to join me? I think it might be best if we put the idea in his head from the start… Um, about… about you, uh, _**helping**_ him with the speech."

"I'd be delighted," Julia quickly responded, but her psyche worried. _This was not going to be that easy to do, at least not without hurting William's feelings in the process. She told herself she could handle it. William would know she had his best interests at heart. It would be fine._

The Inspector gestured towards the door, "Shall we?"

"Yes," she answered, the thrill of the news taking hold, "I'll get my coat."

) (

Later that week, Julia returned home from teaching her University class to find her husband down in his workroom – whistling to himself as he shuffled papers at his desk in the corner. She smiled to herself, happy that he was so happy. William Jr. bounced away, like he used to do when he was younger, in William's baby-bouncer invention.

The tyke smiled up at her. "Mommy!" he declared.

Julia bent down to rub his belly. "You still like bouncing, do you?" she asked him.

"Yes Mommy," he answered and began to add more oomph to his jumps.

Julia caught William's eye. "You do think it's strong enough?" she worried.

William approached and leaned in to kiss her. "I do," he assured. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she could tell he was adoring her. "So, Professor Ogden," he asked, "Will you have some dinner?"

)

It had been a pleasant enough evening, William and the baby sitting with her while she ate the re-heated meal, then William tucking William Jr. into bed while Julia showered and settled in. She was feeling achy, and she had to admit, grumpy. The students had been annoying, complaining about her grading and the difficulty of their latest exam, and it had tried her patience. Even though it was earlier than they might usually retire, she was tired. And the warm, comfy bed looked inviting. _Perhaps William would want to sleep early as well._ Julia went down to see.

)

The light from his workroom illuminated the stairs as she stepped down them and she heard the rustle of papers, sending her brain to remembering William whistling earlier. " _He must be working on his speech,_ " her own voice figured in her head, and with the thought she felt a pang of dread, for it was the speech that SHE was to make sure would not be boring.

She realized, when William's glowing face lifted to greet her, that part of the problem that she was going to have in helping to keep his speech on track was going to be how very much she herself adored this man, and although she could empathize with other people finding his delight with all the scientific and intricate dealings of the world as being tedious, she found William's enthusiasm with such things tended to send her heart into a spinning whirlwind of gushing love for him. The more boyish, the more excited he was, the more delighted she became, and honestly, she was most strongly affected whenever she could NOT understand the details of whatever it was that so thrilled him. And so it was now, for Detective William H. Murdoch had gotten himself lost in the weeds of his enchantment with his discoveries of the potentials of ultraviolet light and its unexpected uses in photography, and it would take some effort on Julia Ogden's part to pull him back onto more solid ground.

Julia's sigh during his reading what he had written alerted him, stopping the flow of his words.

"You don't like it?" he perceptively asked, his directness taking her by surprise.

" _Well,_ " her inner voice coached, " _That's what you're here for, isn't it?"_ and Julia pushed herself to confront the problem.

"It's not that, William," she said, seeing his face sink in response. "It's just, well… Think about other people listening. I mean, they are not likely to find ultraviolet light to be all that interesti…"

"Julia," William took up his defense, "If I don't talk about the science of it, then they won't understand…" William's face scowled. "I remember the first time I elaborated on the scientific methods I had used on a case… They had asked me to explain it! The Inspector couldn't… when they asked him. My speech had impressed Chief Constable Stockton so much that he even considered making me an Inspector." William's mouth frowned and saddened as he added, "Except, of course, he found out that I am Catholic, so it had all been for nothing in the end. That speech was about the differences between batteries and capacitors. They hung on my every word…" William looked so hopeful as his big brown eyes looked into hers.

"Yes, William. I'm sure that's true. But, well, um… Couldn't it be that you remember it wrong. That they didn't understand WHAT you were saying as much as they were simply amazed that YOU knew so much…"

Uncharacteristically, William suddenly became insulted. His eyes homed in on her and his jaw clenched tight, affecting the tone, the diction, of his words. "Oh, I see," he said sarcastically, "A SIMPLE POLICEMAN couldn't possibly understand such complicated things, being a man who never even attended college. Is that it… DOCTOR," he seethed.

"William!" Julia took exception to his tone, "Don't be such a boor!" she struck back, "You know I don't think that!" And now it was her turn to overreact. "Honestly…" she steamed, now HER eyes beading into tiny pinholes of fury, "You can be so ARROGANT sometimes…" she stood from her stool, "Write whatever you'd like, William…" her chin jutted out, "Go ahead, bore your audience to death. See if I care," she stormed and then huffed and then tore away.

 _William felt the world wobbling around him. He planted his hands down onto the worktable trying to steady._

Just then Julia barreled back into the room. "OH, and you, mister," she scorched the words, "will be sleeping on the couch!"

 _How could things have gotten SO out of control so quickly_ , he stared after the wake of her tirade, puzzling. He strained to make out her grumblings as her feet stomped out the beat of her departure on the steps…

"Rude! Selfish! … MAN! Arrogant, superior, MAN!" Julia spit out the angry words, the sounds of which dwindled in volume until he could make them out no more. He held his breath, listened intently, knowing it would come…

" _ **BAM!"**_ the bedroom door slammed tight behind her.

William finally exhaled, stunningly dazed. A part of him struggled to catch up, asking in his head, _"The couch?"_

Just a miniscule of a second later the sound of the baby crying peppered, and then wailed, through the house. William imagined the furious clamping of Julia's jaw in anger in response to the sound, HER loss of her temper having made matters worse. _She would exhale, calm herself down and go comfort the baby,_ he predicted _._

)

He had thought it out, reflected, and come up with the need to apologize. William noticed that their staircase was not creaky, could be traversed in near silence, for the umpteenth time in his life. " _Good craftsmanship,_ " he told himself, obviously trying to use distraction to keep himself from being intimidated, but as he rounded the halfway corner of the stairs, and the light from the thin boundaries at the edges of their closed-tight bedroom door sprinkled into the hallway, he felt his stomach rise up into his throat, and he felt the fear.

" _You played your part, William_ ," he self-coached, " _You need to own up to it… And yes, she overreacted, but…"_ oddly, even merely THINKING this caused him pause, _"… it IS her time of the month, remember – tread carefully."_

His heart was thundering and pounding so loudly in his chest, in his ears, that he barely even heard his own knuckles knock three times on the door.

"Julia," his voice forced over his cottony vocal cords and spilled into the room, muffled through the hard wood of the door.

She had readied for him, anticipated his need to come and get supplies – bedding, his pajamas…

She heard him clear his throat, the familiar sound of his distress playing havoc inside of her, her heart swelling and throbbing with compassion for him. Julia's chin tucked in as she exhaled, glad to feel the fire in her breath, and in her resolve, as she did so. " _Don't answer him_ ," she counseled herself.

"Julia… I'm sorry…" the hesitation gave her a moment to think…

" _Good start_ ," she noted.

It was unlike William to stammer, even when he was nervous, but he did now. "Julia, I… I, uh… I know that the Inspector, um, well… he… I know he said I was lucky to have you to help, um… to help me, to help me write a better…" finally, the man took a breath. "It's just that, well the Inspector said that you would be a great help because you were well-educated – a doctor even…"

Julia stood, her prepared bundle of his couch-sleeping things clutched in front of her chest, just on the other side of the door, so close, so close she could hear his breaths, and a part of her, as she held her own breath and listened, so focused, his voice the only thing in all the world, a part of her even thought she could hear his heart.

William had gone on, "…that you had even won a national prize, and you are a published author… And well, who better to help, but… but, um…" this next breath was deep, to the point that it burned and ached as it passed over his heart in his chest, bringing the force of the emotion to the forefront with its rise, "This has always been a sore spot for me," William's voice cracked as he accepted it, "my lack of a formal college education, and I guess this played into my insecurities on the matter… And, I'm sorry… Jul…"

 _Was it the sound, the movement, or the flood of light, that thundered his heart as the door opened…_

He so absolutely expected to see her face covered in happiness, in forgiveness, in profound love for him, that its NOT being so dumbfounded him, and William Henry Murdoch froze in place staring in the face of her hardened, angry expression, and the big pile of pillows and blankets, and his folded red pajamas on top, that she shoved towards his chest.

He was so stunned his arms didn't move, wouldn't lift to take the bedding.

Stubbornly, Julia stood strong, waited for him.

William blurted out the words without filter or thought, "Didn't you hear me?" he asked incredulously, "Julia, I said I was sorry."

Her sigh told of her impatience.

 _William imagined trying, fantasized that he would reach up and fondle one of her golden curls, lean in close to her, and whisper tenderly in her ear, telling her she was beautiful, and he loved her more than anything in the world, and that the Inspector was right, and he was a very lucky, lucky man…_

"William," she spoke, monotone, rigid, "You were boorish and rude and… snippy, and there are consequences." Julia pushed the soft bundle of bedding more firmly into him, this time his instincts accepting the burden, clasping the bedding in his arms instead of her.

The door simply closed. She was gone.

William dropped his eyes down onto the pile. His toothbrush was tucked in between the top and bottoms of his pajamas. " _She knows there's extra toothpaste in the downstairs bathroom_ ," he told himself, trying with all his might to find something to think, something real, and something elsewhere from the pain. By the time he was back downstairs and plopping himself, bundle in his lap, down onto the couch, he had reminded himself that this was a silly fight, that they had had fights that were so much more serious and frightening than this one in the past, and that they would work this one out – he was sure of it. With that reassurance, he readied for sleep. _Too bad Eloise would have to find him here in the morning…_

)

Reaching the top of the stairs the next morning, William heard the pleasant noises of Claire-Marie helping their son wash and dress for the day. William reminded himself that he too, had some morning routines to do, sighing in confronting their closed bedroom door. He needed to shave. And he would have to face Julia. And he so wanted to fix things. And his heart hammered so in his chest.

He turned the doorknob and stepped inside. Relief at first, _she's in the bathroom._ William paused and blew out some pressurized steam through his pursed lips. _Go on_ , he coached himself forward, first over to the bed to place the bundled bedding down.

The bathroom door was opened, and she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. Stepping through the bathroom door, he gave her a cautious greeting, wrinkling a corner of his mouth somewhat sheepishly, he said, "Good morning." Then William leaned over the countertop and put his toothbrush in its spot.

Julia's expression showed her inner conflict, her jaw was locked in anger, yet her eyes pooled with tears. They stalled there gazing into each other's eyes momentarily, the world seeming to sink and drift away from them.

 _Unexpectedly it hit_. Julia jutted her chin up high into the air – _the only warning it was coming_ , and then she gave him an abrupt shove in the chest and plowed past him on her way over to her vanity.

Sitting at her vanity, crying won out over anger. William's figure came closer in the mirror as he braved approaching her. _My God, she DID love him so much,_ and her tears poured out. _She had to tell him_ , and so she did, admitting that the whole overblown thing was her fault – that it was her time of the month. And crying, and complaining, and confiding, that it made her so mad that her female body would control her emotions and behavior so, and it was so mortifying, and then she asked him, point blank, if he had known.

"Oh, I'm not touching that with a ten-foot poll," he said, then added winsomely, "Or an eleven-foot one for that matter."

There was a halt… a float, while William's charm swooped into her, and swept her off of her feet, for the billionth, billionth, time.

Julia's deep breath, a resounding heartened sigh, told that she had accepted it all, and William knew they would be alright. However, he suspected that HE needed to be the one to make the move.

"Julia, perhaps…" he needed to organize, to say this right, "Perhaps I could apologize again," William swallowed down his apprehension, "for behaving in such a boorish, and rude, and gruff, and unappreciative way last night…"

She found herself holding her breath. _He had remembered her words, quoted them back to her. He HAD been listening… And then, adding to that –_ my God she loved him so, so, much _– he had reflected, she knew that this magnificent man, William Henry Murdoch, had reflected, because he had just admitted that the way he had behaved was 'UNAPPRECIATIVE.' He had her, he had won her over completely, right in that moment_ … But he had gone on.

"And then, perhaps, you could apologize for… for being so stubborn…" but then William stopped in his tracks, his heart having galloped up into a panicked fury. _What was wrong with him, shifting the blame to her – was he crazy?_ His brain became stuck, only offering a repeated, breathless, " _Uh-oh,"_ over and over again.

Julia stood. _Her eyes so blue, so beautiful_ , she walked up to him.

William braced.

"And then you'll kiss me?" she asked.

 _And the music in his head violin-ed, and William's knees trembled, and the little boy in him wanted to burst into tears with relief._ He cleared his throat, taken aback by her yielding, and her sudden switch to seduction.

"I will," he replied simply.

"And then we'll make love?" she pushed for more.

"We won't have time," he offered with his wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth apology.

 _Oh, but Julia Ogden knew how to flirt, especially when her target was this man_. She dropped her chin, looked up at him through her lashes. "So… You're sorry then?" she asked.

William's fingers tucked under her chin, lifted her face to bring those gorgeous eyes of hers up to his. His thumb stroked along her jawline… And a part of her, _sending the thought directly to wrench and clench and twist her womb so deliciously_ , noticed his scruffy, unshaven stubble _and she wanted, hungered, to feel it scratching across her cheeks, and to hear his breath race and pound in her ear and, oh my, she wanted him, ALL of him…_

"I behaved horribly, and I am, most assuredly, sorry," he gave.

Julia smiled, slowed herself down, took a breath. Yet, she surrendered to her wish to touch, reached up and rubbed her silky fingers over his jawline, basked in the feel of the rough scratchiness of him. "And I am sorry that I was too pig-headed to accept your apology last night, and that I made you sleep on the couch," she gave what she could not have last night. She reached both arms up around his neck and stepped in to press her soft, warm, moldable, delectable body against his, and then slipped her petal-soft cheek along his cheek to dangle her lips over his ear. Her humid breath, _jolting right to his groin_ , she whispered, "I am very, _VERY,_ sorry I made you sleep on the couch."

William's mind raced sexy, sexy fantasies to the forefront. _She would be ready, wanting him, and he would have her, have her wildly and savagely…_

He swallowed, forced self-control. " _Easy, William. Easy,_ " his brain coached.

Julia began to wiggle and writhe against him, melty and scrumptious. She kissed around the outside of his ear, a nibble, before she kissed and rubbed, and _TASTED_ all along that tremendous stubble over to his other ear. _Oh yes, William was becoming aroused_ , swelling and hardening and pushing, firmly into her, and his breaths, rushed and husky. She would push beyond that famous ' _William' resolve_ , suggesting, "You promised, detective… my ki…"

Wham, delicious, his lips, his mouth, so warm, velvety soft, always such a surprise, for he was such a strong man, a brave man. For a second it was going to be a ravaging, abandoned and crazy, but William handled the urge, his kisses becoming slower… slower and specific, and his big strong arms up the small of her back, slowly, he was in total control, she was his, fully and completely, her knees weakening, William taking her weight as she felt the floor rising underneath her, _and thud_ , the wall was behind her, and his kisses deeper and deeper…

 _Oh, the moan was heavenly_ when she felt her nightgown rising upward…

 _ **But abruptly a panic hit**_ _, for she was wearing her own invention, INSIDE, a plug of antiseptic wool enclosed in gauze that had been twisted tight at one end to provide a string to use for removal, to be used during menstruation. She called it a 'tampon,' because a woman uses it to TAMP down ON the menstrual flow. She had shared it with most of her female friends and some patients – through Isaac, and the idea was quite popular._

"William…" her voice was raspy from lust, "William wait. I, uh…"

His kisses at her ear, she heard he too was breathless. "We can be quick," he pressured. _His desire, his urgency, gushing her womb so tight she twitched._

"No… um, that's not it," she said, forcing herself to push, to push him back.

"I, uh… I will… Um, please, just a minute… I, um…" Julia babbled through her attempt at explaining as she backed towards the bathroom. " _He's a bright man,"_ she told herself, turning and rushing to do the task, " _He'll figure it out."_

Quick, so quick William hadn't even had time to decide if he should take off his pajamas or not, at least he had managed to lock their bedroom door.

He was standing in front of the bathroom door the moment she opened it.

She found herself suddenly feeling awkward and shy…

William breached the divide, playful, and cocky, and in such a rush, he backed her deeper into the bathroom and closed the door. And she remembered then, it had been a while, the hook hanging at just the right height on the back of that door, solid and strong and screwed in tight for just this one purpose, and her womb wrenched agonously with anticipation. William turned around and removed the bathrobes from the hook, tossing them onto the bathroom countertop and then turned back to her. He reached back behind his neck and pulled his pajama top off over his head, and as he stood before her, how dizzying, the sight of his manly chest lifting and dropping and heaving with want for her.

He reached out and grabbed the front of her nightgown, demandingly, overpoweringly, tugging her into his arms. _The motion, her body flying into him,_ somehow defying gravity with its switch of direction, sent a brief spark of a memory of the time _they had frolicked and played at the beach, after she had been so "scandalous" about removing her dark, hot stockings in public_. The splinter, the flicker, so brief, the present demanding all attention, for now, William pressed into her, planted her back against the wall, the magnificent soft thud stopping her memories.

 _Oh, this time she wouldn't stop him_ , her nightgown riding, wrinkling up… up over her thighs… _her… her,_ she felt so wet… up over the bulging of her bosoms, _their jiggling and bouncing in being set free as the cold air suddenly arrived…_ up, _her arms trapped in the sleeves_ , up over her head. William twisted the material tautly, her wrists caught, _handcuffed_ , he hung the restraining garment over the hook. _So forceful, so fierce, almost angry,_ his impassioned look. _He would have her_. His pajama bottoms, down – off – gone.

 _ **Wham**_ – he was making love to her. Devastating the spin, the clenching, the gushing, the yearning, the wanting him, closer, closer – _PLEASE William…_

So delicious, the warm, ripple, after ripple, after ripple of luscious waves of deliciousness, he spilled and filled, every drop of him for her. _And she loved him so…_

Slowing now, settling… _Oh that was good, so, so good._

There was a worry, a wondering, afterwards, if their hearts, their mortal bodies, could withstand the pure perfection and exertion of it…

Julia recovered, found her voice in the twirling, foggy afterglow, "It feels like I've loved you since before time and space began, and that I'll love you, still William, when they have ended."

Heavy over her, pressed into her, rumbling breaths in her ear, _William's world rolled and rolled and rolled so magnificently he wondered if he would survive it, the thought making him giggle at himself inside his head for he was sure he would, but if not, he was grateful that THIS would be the way he died._ He wondered after Julia's romantic, soul-felt words, _certain they were beautiful and profound_ , but dizzy with it all, and unsure exactly in his rational, steadfast mind, about this idea of time and space having a beginning, having an end. He was sure of one thing though – he felt the same way about loving her, **and so he kissed her and kissed her** , promising her he loved her more than anything, more than everything, he loved her so very much.

And soon, too soon, the world had solidified around them, and a sound, out in the hall, a door, to the hallway bathroom, voices, William Jr. and Claire-Marie, and they remembered where they were, and when it was, and that they had not had time, and now they had even less, and that it was unavoidable now, that they would be late to work, and William would be teased mercilessly by the men in the Stationhouse, _and Julia secretly loved that, and she suspected a part of him did to_ , and she remembered that her hands remained bound in her twisted and gnarled-up nightgown, and that in the throes of their pounding lovemaking she had lifted the twisted cloth off of the hook and captured him in her arms, encircling him around his neck, and so now she needed to rise her arms up over his head to release him, and she made herself do so, and he stepped back and gave her his wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth look, and she giggled, and they cleaned themselves off and hurried to dress for the day.

) (

In his office, William leaning buttocks down, casually resting on his desk, his wife was flirtatious. Close, dangerously near, she whispered into his ear, "Remember this morning?" And then Julia swelled with anticipation because she sensed him holding his breath, and she knew that he did, that he remembered their passionate lovemaking in their steamy bathroom, with her bound to the back of the door. "It was so good, hmm?"

"Mm," he gave.

And she smiled devilishly, having expected him to block the images, the memories, as he would normally do, ' _in public_.'

Taking her aback even further, he said, his voice lusciously grumbly, "Perhaps the morgue?"

And her womb torqued with wanting him so that her knees felt week, and her breathing rushed and gushed out over his ear, down his neck, hot and damp.

"Won't work," she whispered…

And she kissed at his ear, and under it, lower. Suddenly, her tug…

 _Disorienting, gravity shifting…_

Julia's pulling roughly at his tie, stood him upright – **in more ways than one**. And she kissed him, deep and hard and wriggly and warm, _so warm, and MY GOD, so soft_. She broke off the kiss, trailed flutters to his ear…

And all the while, his brain, somewhere far off, hollered uselessly, into the blusteriness _"They'll see! You're at work!"_

Her words teased and tweaked at him so, "Perhaps in your back room?"

 _How could two such opposite things happen together, his longing, and his adamant refusal?_

"No, Julia," he said it, "Not here." He felt her pout against the skin of his neck, and then her soft, mushy, squashy, plush body pressed harder into his, spinning him so.

"I promise to be quiet, William," she giggled, for they both knew such a feat would be difficult for her.

"Definitely… Unequivocally… NO," William stiffened, garnering a bit more self-control.

She kissed him again, marveling that he did not pull back…

At least, not at first, but he managed the wave of lust, pushed back against it, placed his hands to her shoulders and pushed her back, pushed her softly, tenderly… off.

And then, there were those gorgeous chocolaty, melty eyes of his, and she nearly swooned again.

William swallowed, assuring a strength in his voice, "We will not make love in my office, Julia," he decreed it once more.

"Oh, never say never, William," she replied, tauntingly raising an eyebrow at him.

"Julia," he tried to sound firm, "It is precisely because I say no to my backroom that you want it so."

She leaned back in, kissed at his jawline and answered, "Perhaps."

Becoming deliciously breathless, William added, "And thus you will continue knocking away at it…"

Her giggle rippled into him, _shot like a lightning bolt to his groin_ , "Actually William," her voice mischievous and raspy, "The way I imagined it… it was more you _**knocking away**_ at me."

And with that the floor seemed to fall away underneath them…

The sound of it explosive – piercing, "MURDOCH!" the Inspector's big voice roared into the room.

Jolting them apart, nerves tingling with a sudden panic, their eyes met, and William and Julia fell into laughter.

Julia lovingly said, "Must he bellow your name so?"

And William responded, "It's part of his charm," and wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, admitting to accepting the Inspector's ways, perhaps even to adoring them.

"True," she gave with a little giggle, for it was so.

He would hurry to his superior in a moment, but before he did so, he had had an idea, and every cell of his body didn't want to miss the chance to excite her, so he took her hand and pulled her close once more. "If the Inspector's… ' _bellow_ ' is not an emergency, I suggest we go to the Queens Hotel, this afternoon… and I make up for the dominoes."

And Julia Ogden knew exactly what he meant, and it thrilled her to her very core, and her expression showed it. She fiddled with his tie… and she wiggled in that way that she could that drove him absolutely crazy, _so seductive, so sexy_ , and she answered, "Why detective, that would be lovely," and there was joy.

"I'll call you at the morgue as soon as I know," he told her, his lips clamping tight and then, such a winsome bow.

) (

That night, William and Julia huddled together checking on William Jr. sleeping in his bed before they retired for the night. They had been there too long, in a sense, for just checking on him, and they both had become conscious of the fact that they were cherishing their little child together as they sometimes, wondrously, did.

Misty and clear, both far-off and right there, Julia said, "Sometimes I feel so happy it terrifies me, I feel like I can't breathe because of the fear. Does that ever happen to you?" she asked him.

"Mm-hmm," William's voice so warm, so close, so soft, "It reminds me of when, rarely but sometimes, on a crisp night, and I'm out alone, when I look out at the stars above and suddenly I become aware, I become utterly and thoroughly awed, of how impossibly huge and vast the universe is, and my little planet, so alone, so small, me a mere spec on it, tiny and insignificant… I think it's the powerlessness of it that scares me so, looking at the stars, or stepping into the sea sometimes and knowing I just fringe on its colossalness, or feeling so devastatingly happy. You can't, every cell in you knows, you can't control it, you can't make that happiness stay. You want to hold on to it, but you know you are helpless to do so… because it's so much bigger than you."

"Yes. Yes, William, that's it exactly," she whispered, eased and not eased. She hugged him closer and breathed in his smell. Home, with him, with their baby, safe, under the stars.

)) ((


	15. 15: Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh MyT

The Lady or the Tiger?

Chapter 15: Lions and Tigers and Bears – Oh my

Ever since the turn on the century the Policeman's Ball had taken on new meaning, giving it a romantic, stellar, fate-like significance, for William and Julia. Married now, it was their favorite occasion of every year. They danced, and flirted with each other, and toasted the New Year, and, _my, oh my_ , did they KISS – in public, with surprising passion. It seemed they always made the papers the next day – usually the story accompanied by two pictures of them kissing under the fireworks, the first from 1900 and the second from whatever New Year had just been rung in. The side-by-side images brought up, over and over again each time, the sting and the magic of living their story, all wrapped up into one.

They would have had no way of knowing that it would be different this year – that THIS year there would _not_ be a second photograph. The timing was impeccable – it was as if the fiend knew. Only ten minutes before midnight, exactly the same time that back in 1899 Julia had flipped William's soul over inside of his chest by walking into this very same ballroom, stunning, in a racy, gorgeous, red velvet gown, and then telling him, so nervously, that she didn't expect anything from him, but that she and Darcy had parted, and back then William had found it nearly impossible to remain standing with the spin and the float of such remarkable news, and yet, he had managed somehow to seize the day, not to let her slip through his fingers this time, he had managed to tell her – to tell her so very winsomely back then, that he had seen the future and that HIS future was HER…

And now, precisely at ten minutes before the New Year, William and Julia stood together in that one spot… talking, waiting and tingling with anticipation, adoring each other, Julia holding to their tradition of using the same introductory line she had used that fateful night and joking with him that with so many policemen here it would be a good night to commit a crime. They stood right next to the same big doors they had been standing in front of that first time, the big doors that would open out onto the terrace and the fireworks would explode and sparkle and sizzle overhead and they would kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss each other, and it was exactly then that the waiter walked over to them and handed them the folder with the photograph inside, and William opened it out before them, revealing its image opened wide in his hands for them to take in together, and their whole world completely fell apart, plummeted into turmoil and terror, for in William's hands was a picture of their beautiful baby boy sleeping in his bed, and they felt it instantly, heavy and debilitating in every fiber of their bodies, they knew the danger implied by _**the threat, they knew wholeheartedly the sinister intent.**_

) (

It was the intensity of Julia's panic that made her so angry – furious, and there was no one else to take it out on in that carriage, galloping at breakneck speed to their home, but William. _**There was a malicious demon in their house, stalking their baby who slept helplessly in his little bed.**_ The dread, the terror, was intolerable, the high-pitched ringing in the ears, the inability to breathe, so nauseous, so very, very nauseous, dizzy, fighting with every atom to stay sane, to think, to calm down, to hurry… _Please God, please_ hurry. Maternal instincts, fatherly instincts, pumping adrenalin, enough to lift a house, through the veins, but stuck inside this tiny space, stuck helpless, utterly, utterly, helpless.

She had actually smacked him with her bag. Cursed at him, screaming with rage, "God dammit, William!"

William Murdoch was a strong man, he loved her with a power that astonished him, and he could take it, he _would_ take it, if it eased her burden by even the tiniest of bits.

The carriage had not stopped, had barely slowed down, when William opened the door, found the ground, reached back into the carriage and grabbed his wife by the waist and spun her around for the two of them, William so much faster than her, to run like bullets into the house. He would never remember putting the key in the lock, or even making it up the stairs, but the sight of little William's Jr.'s black hair fluffed about on the pillow, the bulging off of the mattress of the blankets, the slightest hesitation William had felt while reaching out to rouse his precious son, the heavenly sound the baby made when taking in a breath before he was pulled tight into William's chest, he would remember living through those things every day for the rest of his life.

Julia was close, close behind him, but in that odd, warped-tunnel-of-time that happens on when one is on super-drive, it seemed an eternity until she bound into the baby's room.

"He's alright!" William promised, his rush so tremendous he had not even remembered to TRY to sound calm.

Julia grabbed their one and only child into her arms, hugged him with such abandon, unaware of her tears. Rocking, _the only way to soothe the shockwave_ , rocking him, she thought to herself that she should not squeeze so hard and she softened, and she planted her face in the tiny boy's neck and she soaked the smell of her baby in, _alive and safe in her arms_ , in through every cell in her body…

William whispered to her, most surely quieter than she had ever heard any voice in her life, "You'll frighten him, Julia…"

Overwhelmed, her eyes met his briefly, the ghostly light from the hall in her face.

 _Wham_ …

With a wallop William felt the slam, the hit in his gut. _Such fury_.

Julia thrust the child into his arms and she ran, ran with all her might, _her legs so painfully weak and heavy from being mercury-pooled with relief_ , she ran into their bedroom, and then slammed the door shut behind her.

How was it possible that Claire-Marie had arrived, only then, from having had heard the couple rush in while she had sat quietly reading, waiting for them in the living room. Obviously, she had been startled into a panic by hearing the two of them flying in through the front door and barreling up the steps? Frightened, the look on her face as she asked the detective, "What is it? Is everything alright?"

William did not know that his eyes were pinned to their closed bedroom door, as he tilted his face down to William Jr.'s head and tucked his nose into the boy's hair, and his lips shushed and kissed and comforted William Jr. in his arms, then he answered Claire-Marie, shock winning over him now, making his speech monotone, hazy and distant, "We received a threatening photograph. We thought he was in danger."

"Everything's been fine, sir… uh, detective. No one has been here…" the nanny reached over and rubbed William Jr.'s shoulder. "He's been fine."

The detective's striking eyes met hers…

And he felt the young woman's sureness waft into him, and he felt – _for the first time in such a long, long time_ – he felt himself breathe…

"It is quite a relief," he said, and a part of him for a second, inside his head, giggled, because that was such an enormous understatement.

He kissed the baby's head once more and whispered, "Sorry, Little Man. You let Claire-Marie tuck you back in… Back to sleep, hmm?" and he handed the two-year old off to his nanny for her to try to calm him and reassure him and settle him back down into the security and coziness of his bed.

Claire-Marie had enough wherewithal to think of an explanation, tenderly telling the toddler as she carried him to his bed, "Mommy and Daddy tried to wake you up to hear the fireworks, but they were too late, Master Murdoch. Maybe next year, hmm?"

Softly, William closed the bedroom door behind him.

Immediately Julia was there.

She railed at him wildly, "This is YOUR fault, William. Always pushing things. So blindly pursuing your goddamned precious truth. You pissed somebody off, AGAIN! Now we have another of your monster nemeses on our hands, some sort of ghastly Gillies nightmare all over again… or maybe some woman from a case who's infatuated with you, like that vampire-crazed girl – Arlene, or maybe even Sally Pendrick, she was always too interested in you, I thought…" a discerning eyebrow lifted judging him, _her mind, his mind, flickering that Sally Pendrick had just been back in Toronto, and considering that fact in incriminating her._ Julia huffed and continued her rant, a hint of tears at the edges of her voice, "But now they're not after me, William! They're after our baby!"

Julia shoved him with a whack in the chest, and then just glared at him, fire-breathing and angry. Such a shock, his mouth dropped agape, and his eyes instantly pooled with tears, and ever so slightly, his head shook from side to side in disbelief. And she saw it, her lovely William's hurt slamming into her heart like a lightning strike, but she was still so ANGRY, and a part of her felt so ashamed for acting this way, and the awareness of that shame made her start to crumble and she started to cry, and she said to him, her eyes glistening with tears, "Some monster is after our beautiful little boy, William. He's so innocent, he never did anything to hurt anyone, except maybe to be born to us, I guess, and… And I'm so sorry William. This is NOT your fault." Julia stepped in closer, touched him, his cheek cupped tenderly in her hand, _for she had hurt him, and he was tender now, and she was so, so, sorry,_ and she told him again that it was not his fault. That she was wrong. That there was only one person at fault for all of this, and that was whoever had taken that photograph.

William struggled desperately for words, his brain screaming them at him, but the weakest utterance was all that escaped his throat, "I shouldn't have…" _but he could not think of what he had done to cause this_ , and he thought _he shouldn't have become a detective, or that they should never have had had any children to be put in danger in the first place…_ "I should have stayed a ranch hand, or just a lumberjack, or been satisfied with being a constable…"

And then she softly wiped aside a tear from his cheek with her thumb and she told him that he was the best detective in all the world, and that if he had not become a detective she would never have met him, and that it was his being such an remarkably good detective in the first place that had been such a large part of her falling in love with him. And he was still such a remarkable detective, and so smart, and so brave, and compassionate and… and focused, and curious, and… Julia paused, shaking her head from being amazed by the memories of how much in love with him she had been, and she told him, "Those butterflies whenever you were around… I fell completely head over heels, William. And…" and with that her eyes fixed to his eyes with a hold that rivaled gravity…

 _Blue, blue eyes_ , he noticed, _and_ _so beautiful. She was absolutely beautiful…_

"It wasn't anything you, or even I, had ever done that made this happen, and you truly are brilliant, and you'll catch him, William. I know you will," she vowed.

And he reminded her that it was true, but only if he had her too, because…

And Julia interrupted him, knowing exactly where he was going, finishing his words, "We always were a good team."

And then he added – _reminding them both on a deeper, less conscious level, of the intensity and the significance of the time he had finally found her after she had refused his marriage proposal, ironically because of a similar kind of threat to what was happening to them right now, and he had held her tightly in his arms, and he had promised her, in that dark, dark alley all those years ago_ , "Together, we are stronger than anyone."

) (

A little while later, the two of them more composed after recovering from the initial shock of receiving the threatening photograph, William pulled the folder and picture out of his coat pocket, and the two perceptive minds went to work analyzing the evidence.

"There could be fingermarks," William said.

Julia felt his eyes turn to her. "Mm," she gave in response.

He watched her face as she perused the picture in his hands and discerned the clues, her focus catching here and there on the little details, and a part of him felt the spark, the thrill, of his good fortune in having such a perfect life partner.

Julia inhaled, _she'd seen something_ , "His curls… his hair was still long, so it was taken before Mrs. Kitchen gave him his haircut… before the Sunday before his birthday," she noted.

 _It was now the end of December, making the time the photograph was taken at least two weeks ago._

William looked at their sweet sleeping baby's coily curls in the image, and just a flicker replayed inside his head, _of his having had seen William Jr.'s black hair,_ now shorter than it was in the photograph and without those beautiful curls _, solidly contrasted against the white of the little child's pillow, right after he had run with all his might up the stairs, when, just a half an hour ago, he had been so thoroughly terrified that the baby had been taken…_

"Oh," Julia said, her eyes grasping his, "Look William," and they both focused back down on the picture. "He's still in his crib in the photograph, so it was before we got him his bed… That was…"

"After Halloween… two or three weeks after Halloween," William remembered. Their brains both calculated in silence – _more than a month or a month-and-a-half ago…_

William sighed, _they needed more_. He considered the source of light, _thinking to himself that overall it was very bright…_ "It's daytime," he observed.

And Julia felt a surge of hope in her chest. _He was truly brilliant_ , and she anticipated what was to come, _some sort of mathematical calculations of angles of the Sun or something of that sort…_

He had gone on, "It must be morning, or a nap… The shadows on the wall from the crib… the light coming from his bedroom window was…"

And Julia's gasp stopped him.

 _Her brain screamed it at first_ – _**THE WINDOW**_!

Her words, awed, spooked, "The window…" at first a mere whisper, it grew, "The window, William…"

 _His beautiful eyes…_

"The Window," and a fear and a guilt and a terror filled her face, and she hurried now to tell him, her words gushing out, "Oh William, I forgot to tell you… to ask you, if you had left it opened that morning, maybe before you had gone to Church…"

And William's brain rushed backwards into the swirling, oddly-lighted tunnels of warped time that his unique brain offered him with his profound and special memory, and he chased down the clues – _him to Church without her, a Sunday – a SUNDAY before she started going to Mass… baby taking a nap, she found his window opened, thought it might have been me who left it opened…_

"It was too cold…" Julia's memory of her discovering the window unexpectedly opened played on, "I was certain you would not have opened his window when it was that cold."

 _Nothing to do but wait for her, they both knew more would come._

"Autumn," she remembered, "The Park… those wonderful leaves… Yes! Yes, you had made for me, had written, about your love changing, like the leaves, the green and yellow and red leaves…"

He remembered too, and the connections fired off in his brain, _the newspapers hounding them, the body at the Body Farm, Friday the 13_ _th_ _! But it wasn't, it was the numbers inverted, the 31_ _st_ _, Halloween. Someone had set-off the booby-trap at the Body Farm – but it had only been a black cat… And further back, when he had gone to reset the trap because the Gazette reporter had set it off – they had gotten his photograph before the man had cut himself free of the net, and shooting back further than that to when he had traded the scrutiny cameras from their house with the ones up at the Body Farm – THAT WAS A SUNDAY! And one of the cameras from their house had taken a photograph – and he had decided to expose it in order to use the camera in the trap to catch the Body-Dumper Killer!_ AND SUCH A PANIC ERUPTED IN HIM!

Julia saw William's expression change – fear and remorse flooding into his eyes.

The horrid photograph of William Jr. sleeping dropped out of hands down onto the vanity surface and William took her hands in his. "We had a picture of him!" he said. Suddenly his jaw clamped tight and anger was there, "I'm such an idiot!" he berated himself.

 _And Julia Ogden knew he was not._

"We had him, and I just threw it away – exposed it without developing it. A picture taken on the scrutiny camera from here in our house, and I took it up to the Farm to replace the ones that took that reporter's picture when he triggered the trap. I can't believe I exposed it, I thought it was worth it… to reset the trap… to catch the Body Dumper Killer at the Body Farm. It was that same day – that Sunday I went up there after, after I went to early Mass. You stayed here with the baby… It must have been that morning, or his nap that day, then you noticed the window left opened. We could have known, would have evidence, his picture when he snuck in… maybe the night before, maybe earlier that morning," William struggled not to physically smack himself with his self-infuriation.

"So long ago," Julia's words, redirecting him out of the fog of his own self-loathing, "I wonder why now, why wait so long to scare us?" she puzzled.

 _It was disturbing to realize how vulnerable they had been, invaded in such a life-altering way without even knowing about it all this time, and worse, to realize that so much more could have been done to hurt them, and to think that now it still could be, though they would be more alert to the dangers now, more defensive. But still, the perpetrator of all this must have wanted things this way, and it was surely not finished. Terrifying to think that in many ways, it had just begun._

) (

That night, Julia wanted the baby in bed with them. Discussion led to an interesting compromise – William would use the Halloween popup monster triggering device with its very loud, evil laugh machine on William Jr.'s bedroom window to serve as an alarm. Not enough to console Julia's fears, they decided to sleep together on the floor in their son's bedroom – just for tonight. William had gone up into the attic and retrieved two sleeping bags, and, combined with the pillows and blankets from their bed, it was quite comfy.

Initially troubled, sleep appeared illusive, but they were truthfully each thoroughly exhausted, and the actions taken to ensure their child's safety seemed reliable enough, and, if they were not already asleep, they would have been surprised, in the end, how quickly sleep had come.

) (

 _ **UP!**_

 _ **JUST A DREAM!**_

 _ **NOT REAL!**_

Julia's voice, shaky and startled called in the darkness, "William. William, it's alright, it's alright. You must have been dreaming… a bad dream is all," her touch, warm, dependable, solid and firm, then her lips so close to him he felt her breath, "William, he's safe. I'm safe. William Jr.'s right here, with us, we're all together… Remember, I wanted us to sleep with him tonight."

Her reminders, her grounding, beginning to settle them both back into reality… and that reality was overwhelmed with the terror they had just experienced, and that they were still experiencing, and thus her connecting their minds and their bodies back to the here and now served to both calm and discomfort, leaving a bad taste in the mouth as the world hardened around them.

So out of breath still, tears in his eyes, _for he had been both sobbing and running and… and…_

William said, explaining, "I dreamt that Gillies had buried the baby alive."

 _The words, just those few words, enough to have her completely understand the horror._

Julia heard, registered, his sigh, saw his dim silhouette reach up and rub his brow. She watched him crawl and roll over onto his hands and knees, then stand, then leave the room.

) (

The light poured softly, warmly, into the hallway as Julia came down the steps to join him in the kitchen. Her own devastation in imagining, _merely imagining_ , such a plight as William trying to save the baby from Gillies, _from trying to save HER from Gillies_ , and so very much horror… and painfully, _so much so that it felt unspeakable_ , painfully going back to those heinous traumas brought on by that malevolent and dangerously capable man. Her own terror in being buried in that coffin once again sucking the air out of her, dreadful nightmares, the electroshock therapy to treat them, reconnecting with William – and such profound magic – because of it, Darcy murdered, her nearly hung, all of it, all of it, flooded back in and threatened to drown her. And she knew that her beautiful William was suffering terribly as well, and it hurt her, hurt her down into her deepest core.

He was at the stovetop, stirring the pot of hot chocolate. _So grateful for the soothing sight of HIM in his pajamas, the sweet smell of chocolate in the room, the fact of it, of their special way of coping, that it was there for them when they needed it, oozed over her, into her…_

Julia cleared her throat, not wanting to startle him before she approached him from behind.

 _He smiled to himself, for his rational mind had told him NOT to make enough hot chocolate for two, but his heart had doubled the mix in spite of the figuring._

She slipped her arms around his waist from behind and he was comforted by the warmth of her plushness as it settled into his backside, her up on her tippy-toes to look over his shoulder, her chin resting down on him, a wispy curl feathering against his ear. Glad for the less-exposed connection this position yielded, his tear-filled eyes not drawing all her attention as they would have done face-to-face, he decided no words were necessary. William's deeper breath enough to tell the perfection of being, her _with_ him.

Julia would explain, for she was breaking her own decree that they would stay with William Jr. "I left the baby's bedroom door opened, and your horrid monster's cackling is surely loud enough for us to hear down here, hmm?" her voice tender, her lips so near to his ear with a kiss. The mood _not_ sexual, her hands out of habit rode up his stomach to the muscles of his chest, and she whispered her admission to him, "And perhaps I was overreacting…" and then she hedged…

 _And he felt the tweak of his own adoring of her tendency to pride spark inside of him…_

Julia now wanting to minimize, to deflect, the perception of herself as having had behaved as if taken by some uncontrollable wave of female hysteria, she added, "…perhaps just a bit."

He wrinkled a corner of his mouth, but not as an admission that he thought she had been being overly melodramatic – quite the opposite. It was because he was considering, in his head, that _any GOOD mother, and Julia was most assuredly a good mother, would have felt the same way…_

"You're all sweaty," Julia's observation called him, her hands dwelling on the damp, moist edges of his pajama top collar.

A stutter at first, _the strain of remembering, a twinge of shame for his reaction to a mere nightmare, his fear, his weakness, not considered manly_ , "I, uh… I was running – to the grave…" he swallowed with an attempt to strengthen his voice, "and digging."

Spying an opportunity to lighten the mood, Julia smiled. Her tone, from behind him suddenly teasing, "Really…" she questioned, alerting to her playful intent. "The Inspector says you never 'bloody' dig," and then her delightful giggle peppered the air.

William was charmed, could not help but smile. He even chuckled. But then there was a heavy pause, a deep sigh, as he remembered back. Gravity weighed on his voice as he told her, "I did…" and he needed to clear his throat, "dig… _**that**_ day."

And Julia knew instantly that he was thinking back to his fierce and panicked shoveling to get her out of Gillies' grave in time. Her mood matched his in its solemnness, as she turned him to her with a gentle nudge at his big, bulgy shoulder, _sometimes so floored by such a strong man's vulnerableness_. "I know you did," she vowed to him, her eyes luring him so forcefully with their earnestness, with their honesty, so that the rawness of it stung.

As if swallowed up in a tunnel, she felt him falling back, his eyes becoming glisteny, pooled, tugging her heart with all their might. He was holding his breath, the only way not to feel the full force of the memory of the terror, the lack of air scratching his voice as he said, "I've never know such fear… I was unable, and it was impossible not to, imagine finding you dead, underneath all that earth…"

Julia's empathy with William's plight that day seemed unbearable, and her very saneness felt endangered by even an inkling of the thought that she herself might face the awful memories directly, and probably also because of having had undergone Dr. Roberts' shock-therapy treatment and its effect sparing her the tracks in her mind that she would follow to go back there, and because of all that she pushed the memory of being in the sweaty, putrid, dank, dark, lost coffin, buried alone, somewhere that nobody could find, in a grave under 6 feet of dirt, she pushed the past, _away_. Yet, she had an intense need to quell his distress, and so she comforted, "It was not your fault back then, William… and it's not your fault now. And… And I said horrible, horrible things to you tonight. And I know you know I was so scared I couldn't think, William – couldn't breathe." Julia stepped close to him, _a part of her marveling at the way his thick, long, black eyelashes held his salty tears at bay, and how the sparkling and ponding of water lured her so_. She took a deep breath, and heartfelt, she offered him, "I'm sorry. They weren't true, those things I said. They were never true."

Her wait was not long, his wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth easing her. _She didn't think to say it_ , as a result of its spontaneity hearing her own voice whisper to him, "I love you, William. So much, I love you."

) (

The next day was New Year's Day, so there was no rush to get up and get to work. When the Murdoch toddler awoke, the sunlight low and dim through his westward-facing bedroom window, his eyes caught – but could not believe – the sight of his parents sleeping there on his floor. It was like a dream come true. Hesitation though, filled his little body as he crawled out of his bed and approached. There was no door to knock on… the lack of the familiar boundary suddenly worrying him somehow. And so, he stayed back, clutched his stuffed rabbit, his trustworthy companion Blanco, to his chest and just looked at the huddle of blankets and his Daddy's red pajamas and his Mommy's white nightgown, and her long, curly hair…

Patience tough for one who is only two, the stress became more than he could handle, and his little voice, so, so, quiet at first, beckoned, "Mommy?"

And with the softest of lilts, Julia was awake.

And her pretty blue eyes opened up, and her arms lifted inviting him to nestle into her bosom, _like the best thing in the world_ , sandwiched and sheltered and cuddled there in between Daddy and Mommy. And the little boy dove for the joy, and he wiggled and smothered his face into his Mommy's soft body. And he felt the tickly vibrations of her talking to him as much as heard her voice muffled in her hug.

And she greeted him, and she told him she loved him so much, and his Daddy loved him so much.

A deep breath removed the uncertainty of his Daddy's being awake, and William rolled to face them more directly, propping his elbow down into the picnic-like makeshift mattress and resting his head in his hand. His dark eyes bounced back and forth between his son and his wife. "Good morning," his dry voice warmed them.

Julia reached over to touch his scruffy face…

And William Jr. swung from the mother to the father and wrapped his arms around his Daddy's neck and squeezed tight. His Daddy's voice was in his ear as he said, "Happy New Year, Little Man," and for a split second his little two-year-old brain almost remembered being woken up last night, but it suddenly disappeared.

Instead he imagined the fireworks he did not see, _the loud pops and bangs, and the tooting horns and the shouts he did not hear but he KNEW for sure were there – the whole New Year's celebration hullabaloo oddly pretending to be a memory…_

Suddenly, Daddy became playful and he was hurled up into space, held, floating high up above his parents, his Daddy's big strong arms his spaceship. His mother caught the wave of fun, a pillow in hand, her biggest challenge was the decision of which one of the two men in her life to pummel with it – mischievously deciding it would be William.

When the roughhousing finally quieted with the small family in a Murdochian pile of huffing, happy exhaustion, William remembered the temporary popup-monster-laugh alarm at their son's window and he explained, "Come here, my Little Man," and he took his son's hand and took him to see. "We've set up the popup monster's laugh on your window, so it can warn us if anyone tries to come in. It's on a battery, and it only has so much power. It is not to be played with. You cannot make it laugh, you hear," his Daddy sounded stern.

"Yes Daddy," the little one said.

Heading out to dress, Julia nestled her arm into William's and squeezed him tight, joking, "It's a **battery** , William? I thought it was a **capacitor** …"

"Very funny, Julia," he groaned.

Still, her reminder of their upcoming speeches and awards, and subtly, _or not so subtly,_ guarding against his tendency to get _too_ excited, _by outside standards anyway_ , about boring, scientific and technical details – and _truth be told, she loved him for it, loved him with all her heart,_ this reminder was also about life going on, and so it would, ready or not.

) (

Days passed, and the urgency too passed, despite the parentally protective incessant internal reminders to remain diligent, to remember what was at stake, and that the threat was real, and looming, and still, the more time that passed without incident, without evidence of any danger, the more complacency seeped in, sunk in.

)

In the middle of the work week, bars finally installed on all the windows in their home ensuring safety, William and Julia finally opted to risk showering together, satisfied that William Jr. would be safe even while they were both fully absorbed in being together in the enclosed, cut-off, pounding of the steamy cascading water in the echoing standup bath, and distracted by the thunderous passion of their lovemaking.

Their bond solidified by their love – mind, body, and soul, the couple snuggled together in the afterglow in the blanketed softness of their marital bed, engaging in the sweet intimacy of pillow-talk. Julia thanked him for having the bars put up on the windows… and for keeping the popup-monster-laugh at guard on William Jr.'s window despite it's not being wholly necessary now.

She giggled, out of the blue, remembering her own joke about the power source for his invention, " _the capacitor…_ _or was it a battery?"_

Her head resting down on his chest, his fingers brushing through her hair, he leaned his mouth down closer to her and asked her to tell, "Hmm?"

"I was thinking, William…" her pause only rousing his curiosity more. "Well… Wouldn't it be funny…" _and Julia thought to remind him that he_ _ **could**_ _be funny,_ hurriedly interjecting, "Sort of like when you surprised me with that whoopee-cushion you tricked me into sitting on – remember?" and she felt him nod unconvincingly. "Um, wouldn't it be funny if we did your speech together – both of us up on the stage, I mean." Julia lifted her face to find him in the dim, dim light of the wintery moonlight through the window. She elaborated, making the idea more and more enticing, "We could tell the audience that I'm up there with you to keep you from being boring…" such childlike glee entered her voice as she imagined aloud, _her husband feigning shock and insult with his raised eyebrow_ , "And then you could do just that – get boring…" she giggled, "But I would love it too – because I am almost as much of a nerd as you are. Or… Oh, this would be better, I could tease you about it… about your being boring," and she gushed with excitement imagining it, "And I could make you blush. The audience would love that, William!"

) (

This year the Annual Ontario Constabulary Convention was held in Toronto, and thus the audience was fully packed with supporters for what the papers called, "Toronto's Favorite Couple," the Murdoch's, who took the stage for the Keynote Speech.

Detective William Murdoch, winner of the 1906 Policeman of the Year Award, spoke confidently into the microphone, his beautiful wife, who just so happened to also be Toronto's most notable pathologist, Dr. Julia Ogden, stood next to him at the podium, her sparkling gown, her beaming face, helping to giddy the crowd. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," the detective began…

So quickly, his wife leaned in close enough to be overheard by the microphone, "Isn't this exciting!" she whispered, wiggling and bouncing and squeezing the stiff, buttoned-up man with seemingly boundless glee.

William Murdoch's face burst into a smile, her enthusiasm contagious, especially to him. "It is," he agreed boylike, but then nodded winsomely, regaining his composure. Focusing back on the task at hand he continued, "I am Detective William Murdoch of the Toronto Constabulary…" _so odd, he somewhat noticed through his nervousness that his tuxedo lacked a lapel to lift, and more importantly a badge to reveal._

 _His quick brain reminded him that he meant to explain why Julia was at the podium with him_. He went on, unflapped, "When the Ontario Constabulary Committee met this year to decide who would be selected as this year's Policeman of the Year, it seems my name came up…" William frowned and added, with a pause, because, already, some people had laughed, "I was told at least one board member moaned…" The audience's flood of laughter deepened his frown, and he pushed himself to get back to the point and ignore the dents to his ego. He cleared his throat and continued, "The winner of the award gives the keynote speech, and there were complaints, worries, in the committee that people would find me to be boring, tedious, that I would go on and on about some math problem or an electrical charge that was recently discovered, or something…" William paused and blew away the emotions. "I'm told it was said that I am… stuffy." He looked to Julia.

"I'm sorry, William," she said, bringing the audience to laugh again, for even the man's own wife was unable to deny the claim.

William swallowed and went on, "The member who had suggested my name for the prize pointed out my accolades…"

Julia leaned in and said, trying to offer support, "Oh, and there are many," she nodded her head up and down and caught the eyes of members of the audience. _Knowing William would feel uncomfortable about 'boasting,'_ she pushed him, asking, "Didn't you tell me that more than one board member touted your accomplishments – What were some of them, exactly, William?"

Powerfully, her eyes urged him to be brave, _and he fought momentarily becoming caught by her glowing beauty, her cheeks so rosy, and her kissable glistening pink lips, so full, and those big eyes of hers, azure, clear and fresh, so magnetizing…_

"They…" he cleared his throat, "One of them, uh… reminded the board that I had won other prizes, two big ones just this year. And that I have been given International Accommodations, this year by the French for solving the theft of the Pink Panther Diamond, and in the past from the United States for saving the American president – more than once…"

Julia practically jumped to reach the microphone, her voice almost yelling the amazing fact, "And for saving the Queen!"

Thomas Brackenreid's voice boomed out, "God save the Queen! Well, God and Murdoch!" And once more people gushed into laughing.

Waiting for the din to settle, William stepped closer to the microphone, Julia yielding and moving back to his side, William finally got to what he believed was his biggest asset, "I use unconventional and innovative methods in my policework, some say my methods are at the forefront of forensic science…"

Julia whispered in his ear, "Pendrick's movie, William… and, oh, Arthur Conan Doyle."

William raised an eyebrow at her, "They don't want to hear about that," he dismissed her.

The crowd grew noisy, protesting and pushing to be told.

"My wife…" and a panic surged through him because _he had not gotten to the point, yet, of explaining why she was there –_ _ **he hadn't even introduced her!**_ And a part of his brain threw up a reassuring reminder, " _The Master of Ceremonies introduced_ _ **both**_ _of you before you came up on the stage_ ," and so quickly he coached himself to finish what he had been saying so as not to look daft. "My wife wants me to add that James Pendrick made a moving picture about me…"

And William had to halt mid-thought for the applause, and he was courteous enough, and gracious enough, to take a moment to ask James Pendrick to stand and receive a round of applause.

James Pendrick returned the favor, having to yell to be heard from where he stood down on the floor "It should be noted that Detective Murdoch's Stationhouse # 4 has had the best record, not only in Toronto, but in all of Canada. And it has been so, I'm told, ever since Detective Murdoch became detective there."

Hoots-and-hollers filled the air, Stationhouse #4 celebrating the notoriety, Henry Higgins risking scowls from his beloved Ruth for his outburst, George Crabtree up out of his seat to cheer.

Pendrick was joined by Inspector Brackenreid at the same table. Standing the Inspector thanked everyone for their appreciation of his Stationhouse's good work, and then he added, turning to address the couple up at the podium on the stage, "But, I must warn you all, Murdoch's forensic science that he's so proud of, though it is truly brilliant, and nothing ever before it has been more effective, but, well, it makes him slow as molasses and, if he gets to talking about it, well… Dr. Ogden," his tone mixed pleading with a threat of scolding.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention once more," William announced. "What I was trying to say was that despite the accomplishments that I have been fortunate enough to have in my favor, it was argued quite adamantly at that board meeting that if I was given the award then I would also have to be the keynote speaker here tonight, and that since a keynote speaker needs to be…"

Julia reached for the microphone, nudging him.

"Julia… I just got started…"

Julia wriggled and sidled herself in between William and the microphone, gaining control. "I'm told one board member suggested that Detective Murdoch, here," she paused and made quite a show of looking her husband up and down, and then continued, "Well, I'm told the man argued that William Murdoch is quite a handsome man, and that at least all the _**wives**_ would be entertained by seeing a good-looking man such as him up on the stage."

Murmurs fluttered through the audience, interspersed with feminine pockets of uncomfortable giggles.

The Hall quieted down enough for most of the crowd to be able to hear Margaret Brackenreid's voice saying to the women at her table, her speech sloshed and _TOO_ loud, "Ruppersizing, that the handsome Detective Muderrock also writes… sssuch pretty, pretty pluv poems too – about storm rains and str… st.. steamy things under the covers…"

"Margaret!" Inspector Brackenreid snatched away the wine glass from her hand. The periphery of his eyes suddenly aware that everyone in the Convention Hall had turned to see them. "That's enough!" his eyes glared fire at her as he whispered his warning through gritted teeth…

"Ahem," Julia tried to intervene, and all the crowd's faces reoriented up onto the stage, "Well ladies," Julia pumped them up, raising her hands and gesturing towards William, "Was the man right?"

 _Oh, it was wonderful_ , the Hall erupting into huge applause.

Pressure pounding, William tried to take back the microphone.

Julia teased him so very mercilessly, "Oh no. No you don't detective. Not until your face returns to its regular color…" receiving a glorious laugh, because William Henry Murdoch had turned such a bright, bright shade of red.

Julia waited, _perfectly_ , for the laughter to die down and then she mischievously added, "I love it when he blushes," and poor William, who had almost recovered his normal complexion, blushed beautifully all over again, as he so deliciously turned to face her and gave her a scowl, with a chastising raised eyebrow.

Of course, sending the Hall once more into roaring laughter.

Julia giggled adding, "You are delightfully bashful, William," now her face nearly as red as his.

And every heart in the Hall felt it, the power of the love these two shared.

A big, satisfied smile on Julia's face, she leaned in and whispered in his ear. She took a moment then, in front of all the world to cup his cheek, and to hold to his notably big, warm brown eyes, and then to smile once more, _but to him_ , _her smile solely meant to be given to him_. Striking, the intimacy.

Julia gestured for him to take back the microphone, stepping aside and offering the central space with her hand.

The detective cleared his throat, took a deep breath, but then he started shaking his head and a smile curled, twitching with his efforts to repress it. He chuckled, losing control, for he was not yet able, it seemed, to start straight away. "Whew," a rattle sounded, loud in the room over the speakers, of his tensioned exhale through pursed lips, letting the pressure out. A little giggle, another try… _He would get to the point, the reason Julia stood with him._

"I'm told that someone at the meeting suggested they could liven up my speech by inviting my wife to join me. Doctor Ogd…"

Applause filled the Convention Hall, forcing him to step back, to pause, and to applaud Julia along with the crowd.

It quieted.

William returned to speaking. "The Board members had many good reasons to put her up here with me. I have earned none of my accomplishments alone, and Dr. Ogden's forensic work is tantamount to nearly each and every one of my successes…"he took a breath and added, "Her, along with so many others at Stationhouse Four." And another pause was necessary as William gestured towards the side of the room where the Inspector and the Stationhouse 4 constables and their guests sat at their tables, to applaud them officially as well. The clapping finished, he tried to get back to the same point once more, _and inside he groaned at himself, for it seemed he would never get to it_ , he said, "Dr. Julia Ogden has won impressive awards herself, works as the head pathologist for all of the Toronto Stationhouses, and she is a professor of medicine, teaching and inspiring the next generation of doctors." William tilted his mouth closer to the microphone and lowered his voice, the effect feeling like he was sharing a secret with them, getting down to the heart-to-heart truth of it. He told, "And she's dynamic, and she's brilliant, and she's generous and strong and tireless. And she has done all this, and so much more than you will ever know, while battling uphill against a current that has been built to move men forward and to hold women back…"

And the whole room sensed it, the electricity of the importance of his message sending little tingles up the spine.

"And, well this remarkable and rare woman lights up my life like she has lightened up this speech, and I love her, from the top of the hairs on my head down to the tips of my toes, and I really want her to know, and all of you as well… She makes me whole."

He watched her face glow, and they both thought for a moment that her eyes might tear up, and then William went on and he concluded, "And so, very wisely, the Ontario Constabulary Committee agreed to give me this prize, but on the condition that my beautiful wife would help me with delivering this speech, and so, finally, that is why you have us both of us tonight. Thank you. Thank you all, very much."

The applause was loud and long and heartfelt. William and Julia, wearing their big smiles, their twinkling eyes, politely bowed to the audience, and accepted their praise and thank-yous from the Master of Ceremonies, who would take the podium to close for the evening. They exited the stage, stopping here and there among members of the audience, shaking hands and receiving compliments, on their way back to their table.

There was much celebration and congratulations on their unexpectedly funny speech – _Madge Merton would even write in her column that it was 'hilarious.'_ The successful and memorable night was nearly to a close, only dessert left to be served.

A waiter delivered an envelope to William…

William's expression, speechless and terrified when he caught Julia's eye, her face revealing she too shaken, and they each knew with a surging panic that they both felt the fear all over again, their insides whirling backwards in time, for this was all too similar to when they had received the terrible photograph at the Policeman's New Year's Ball, the photograph of their beautiful two-year-old little son sleeping in his bed, and every nerve had stood up on end, and they had not yet recovered, could never recover, from the shear horror of it.

The note inside the envelope was typed. William held it so that they could both read it.

 **I must say I was surprised, a serious man such as yourself agreeing to your wife's risqué plan – you of all people willing to attempt to entertain an audience with humor. But then, splendidly amazing, you pulled it off, dazzled them with your modest blushing. Kudos detective, kudos.**

Stunned, Julia said, her tone almost calm, "I want to go home now."

William was already up, the note folded back into the envelope, tucked into the inside of his tuxedo. He pulled back her chair, not a word to anyone, although others at the table were noticing. The Inspector glanced to Murdoch's pocket _. He had seen the envelope._

"Is everything alright, Murdoch," he asked.

"No. No sir. We have to go," he replied, his motion already away.

He put his arm around her shoulder as they hurried off. "Best to call first. Constable Jenkins set up a post right outside his bedroom door – knew to leave the door opened. We'll call ahead, make sure he's fine…"

In the cab barreling home once more, the mood was much calmer this time. They had spoken to Claire-Marie. They had been reassured that all was well with their son. Hearts raced, jaws clenched, but it was manageable. The panic could be held at bay this time. Thus, the rational mind worked better.

William's brain raced down multiple tracks. _"The note was written AFTER their speech, because it said they had "pulled it off," but it was typed. No one could have typed up such a note so quickly. There must have been two notes prepared – one for if the speech had gone well, the other for if it hadn't…"_ Another thought ran alongside, _"Kudos, an uncommon expression. Used mostly in academia – so someone well educated…"_ But there was something troubling him, something tiny, and annoying, and it kept poking and nagging at him.

He asked her, "How did the author of the note know it was YOUR idea, Julia… _your_ idea for us to be funny?

"Perhaps they just guessed – it would imply they know us both very well, uh, to know it would be my idea," she responded, always game to travel his thoughts with him.

A twitch at his eye, distaste on his face with the lack of satisfaction, he pressed, "What if it wasn't a guess? How could they know?"

"Well," she tried, "Maybe there is yet another listening device in our house?" she suggested.

" _That would make sense_ ," he thought in his head. And so it was necessary to consider where they could have been overheard, and he considered aloud, "We did not write any of the speech in my office – or the morgue…"

"Mostly in your workroom…" she added to the remembering.

"Did you tell anyone about our plan?" he asked her, already certain that he had not.

"Only Ruby," she answered, "In a letter. Perhaps they intercepted our post?" she offered.

"Perhaps?" he gave, but his mind had already moved on. He pulled out the note, turned it over and examined the envelope. _The photograph of William Jr. sleeping in his bed had been in a folder. That was different. But the method of delivery was ominously the same…_

Julia asked, scaring them both so much more in admitting to the concern, "You think they are connected, don't you?"

He nodded, his brown eyes firm to hers.

"The same man sent them both," she dared say what she feared the most, "The baby's picture and this note?"

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth, bringing a stinging heat to the back of her eyes as the tears swelled and a dizzy nausea began to drown through her. They had no choice now, no choice but to go through the horror of it, helpless, with absolutely no control, like when a young child needs to cross through the scary woods at night. She had to fight it, the urge to fall down and give up, and William sensed it, and he held her close, and his words promised that it would be alright, that they were strong when they were together, that everything would be alright, easing her with his mantra.

 _ **It was spooky though, knowing for certain that there was danger hiding in wait for you, for your child, out there in the hard, cruel world… knowing it was there but that you could not see it. You had to be hyperalert, diligent…**_ exhausted _ **… Search the fuzzy, dark boundaries of every tree, focus and magnify every sound in the brush, don't forget it can come from above, from behind… Widen your view, focus your view, intensify your sensors, be ready, be ready to fight with every ounce of your soul, resist taking flight unless you are all together. Don't leave one alone. Never, never leave one alone… alone to be gotten by the lions and the tigers and the bears…**_

 _ **Oh my.**_

)) ((


	16. 16: Devil Got Your Goat T

Chapter 16: Devil Got Your Goat?

Julia came home late this particular evening, from teaching her University class. Barely in the door, hanging up her coat, her beautiful little boy came streaking by – naked as a jaybird. Unexpectedly, appearing from a completely different side of the house, her handsome husband ran into the foyer – _hesitated to meet her eyes, greeted her with a quick nod_ – and then rushed back to chasing the child. Her brain registered it after he had disappeared, _William was completely soaking wet, and he was still dressed in his suit vest and tie._ He had obviously been bathing the escaped child, _while dressed like that_ , and the juxtaposition of the two struck Julia as hilarious, launching her into head-shaking laughter.

She joined in the game, and soon the slippery two-year-old was captured, and delightfully roughhoused about and then cuddled and loved by BOTH parents, _every child's dream come true._ Little William Jr. had even enjoyed that strange moment when his Daddy had chased and caught his Mommy – instead of him. _His little insides had felt so funny when the two of them kissed like that. And he had found himself mesmerized, struck and stuck staring, at least for a second. And then, all of a sudden, he had become annoyed and angry with them for messing up the game with all that yucky kissing stuff._ Needing to put an end to it, he had used a sofa cushion, and had given his Daddy a good wallop, the toddler-attack bringing back some sort of order to the fun.

Afterwards, Julia teased her husband that it was HIS fault that the child was so wound up, and therefore HE would have to be the one to get the boy sleepy, for it was already past his bedtime. Invariably though, their little son ended up sitting with HER in the rocking chair in his bedroom, tucked in her soft _Mommy_ arms, being rocked and stroked and so very, very, loved. And, finally, his breathing had slowed and deepened, and peace had settled around him, and delicious drowsiness in the perfect warm safety of home had surrounded him… _and the next thing he would know, it would be morning and he would wake alone in his bed._

)

Later that evening, Julia had showered and put on her nightgown and a robe, and then she went down to find William in his workroom. His vest and trousers had almost dried. _"The man was still in his tie,"_ she marveled to herself, _secretly loving his tie_. On his worktable, splayed out in front of him, there were thin metal rods arranged and bolted together into some sort of a long contraption with an intricate mechanism consisting of a sliding platform and springs at one of its ends. She stood on the edges of the room admiring him. She watched as William's fingers reached up to rub his brow, _the latest invention troubling his brilliant mind. And already she knew, he would work it out. It would work marvelously in the end, whatever it was._

Inside his head William was completely wrapped up in problem solving. _It needed to be tied in place under the sleeve, without blocking the movement of the lower section. And there was the problem of twisting and bending at the wrist too. And then, it would need to extend, at least 7 or 8 inches, to get down into the hand. At least now, the activation-triggering button worked properly, finally located in a place that's reachable. That's no longer the problem. Now it's oversensitivity – it's triggered too easily, the quicker movements one makes, not just the button, sets it…_

"William," her voice startled him. Made him jump. Embarrassed, he stuttered…

"Jul… Julia!" he answered, his own use of her name quelling his unnecessary worry almost instantly.

"Sorry," she gave, embarrassing him even more.

 _Wise though, she would not let them dwell there, on such a silly thing as him being startled._ A part of her mind reminded her that _they remained on high alert. They had NOT been able to find a listening device in this workroom, although they had considered that their drafting-out the plans for William's speech on his drawing board down here may have been a means for the author of the dreaded note to have become akin with their plans for injecting humor into William's speech, as had been alluded to in the terrifying note. But if so, then that also meant that the villain had gotten into their house on the sly,_ _ **again, AFTER**_ _they had installed the security bars on the windows, them taking that protective action because of, what they believed to be,_ _ **the same**_ _sinister villain's photograph of little William Jr. sleeping in his room, handed to them at the Policeman's New Year's Ball… The fact of such a_ _ **second**_ _intrusion, in itself, was terribly troubling. And still, since receiving the note at the Annual Toronto Constabulary Convention, there had been nothing more from whoever it was that was taunting them, whoever it was that was threatening their child, whoever it was that had somehow invading their home. Surely, William had every right to startle. She would move on._

"William Henry Murdoch," her voice took to a seductive scolding, "How can it be that you are still in a suit and tie at this hour? And I do say, our marital bed is calling." Julia reached up to his tie, her beautiful blue eyes down on its smooth fabric, silkiness so that it slid so perfectly within her fingers. She felt William's eyes on her, heard his breathing deepen, steaming hotter.

 _Some sort of siren, she had him._ William Henry Murdoch would drop everything. Thoughts of mechanisms that needed a looser spring whirled away so fast he spun, knees weak, heart pounding. His brain coaxed her inside his head, _"Take me. Please take me."_

A few kisses, then she tugged him forward, up the stairs, by his tie. Lights out – _he'd lock up the house later._ They would make love now. Only that. Only that.

She undressed him – sent him to shower. Julia waited for him in bed – the lights low.

She chuckled to herself when he turned up wearing his pajamas, _for they would not be long for the world._ He stood over her for a moment, before getting under the covers with her, and they let gravity play with their souls, magnetic forces reeling them, their desire for each other – centripetal the spin of it. The debilitating power of it passed and he slipped in, took her in his arms.

Her lips glanced over his ear as she told him, "I love you so much, William," and she giggled so beautifully before she added, "It warms the very cockles of my soul with its glow. Do you feel it?" she seduced.

Magnificent, his returning chuckle. "Oh, I feel it, Julia. It most assuredly warms my _**COCK**_ -les too," he stressed his pun, _possibly also her unintentional pun as well_ , and he pressed the firm evidence of his meaning against her thigh.

 _The image of her husband's hard, eager… Mmm_ , bolted into her brain, sweeping her up, _so suddenly up and then down, breathless with its spinning,_ for a moment.

Playfully, she gave him a shove, punishing him for his brashness. "I do appreciate the effort William, but truly, being funny is NOT your forte."

Returning her banter, he complained, "Mrs. Murdoch, I am fully aware that it's because of YOU that I never did get to " **BORE** " the audience with my speech, I didn't even get to TRY to dazzle them with the intricate details of my use of ultraviolet light to find the unique evidence of the victim's oddly-shaped bruise on his thigh…" William rolled her over and pinned her wrists down into the mattress, his gorgeous, gorgeous eyes twinkling with his teasing. "I do believe you went off-script milady…"

 _For her part, Julia had always planned to go off-script – for she knew it would be the only way to truly get him to blush. And it had worked, wonderfully_. However, his look above her now had brought on such an overwhelming shift, _drawing, luring_ , it had wholly stolen her breath away, and thus she found herself unable to speak. She was hopelessly caught, could not even think to resist, _too late, too late_. His touch electrified, jolted, zapped down to her womb, _so huge her want for him, thundering and throbbing… down there – the only place in the world now, down there wanting him._

Julia wriggled against him, so much fun, trying to escape. The action, the motion, sent some blood, some oxygen, back into her brain, _sparking memories of their being up on the stage together, her teasing him to the audience about his handsomeness, and his beautiful, beautiful blushing…_

"You ARE a very attractive man, William," she offered, then adding, "It always surprises me you blush so when it's pointed out," and now he yielded to her, and let himself be rolled onto his back, and her hands took to exploring his bulges, buttons popping opened on his pajama top, William, too, daring and unbuttoning the little white buttons down the center of her nightgown from below her, together suddenly a rush, opening the packages. _A nibble to his ear, a thunderbolt slamming full-force into his groin. Kisses, those delicious 'clicks' as each one breaks off to begin another_. Julia said to him, "And those women, William," her mouth down to his bare flesh, his hunky chest, pajama top no longer an impediment – her tongue on him, satiny and warm, his breath surged out, he felt her mouth capture around her hold of his pectoral muscle, sucking him in, _almost, almost to his nipple_ , her mouth tightened around her devilish smile. Knowing, _certain she was destroying him_ , and _oh how she loved it,_ she said, "All those women in the audience, giggling and applauding, and WISHING that they could be WITH you. They don't even know the half of it, they have no idea how truly gorgeous your body is under those suits of yours, William."

Suddenly she lifted her head up, releasing his wet flesh to be tingled by the sudden cold absence, and caught his bedroom eyes. "Actually William, why aren't you blushing now?" she asked sincerely.

William grasped a curl, the backs of his rough fingers stroking softly against her cheek. _The man could be so lusciously cocky, sometimes._ "I'm far from embarrassed," all that he said before he flipped the balance, shifted the gravity, _somehow her back against the mattress once more_ , and his kiss – _my God the man could kiss_ – spun her out of control. His leg between hers, pushing her thigh aside, finding she succulently wanted him, undoing his pajama bottoms, the pajama bottoms lowering down until gone, the whirlwind of his warm, solid TOUCH, heavenly, the rupture, unbearably pleasant, forcing a whimper from her throat, _so helpless_ , it erupted him into a fury of need, savage his want. He had to take her, the drive, the urge, pounding, furiously pounding, closer to her.

"William," her pleading under him, "Please. Please…" only deepening, fiercening, his thrusting.

She felt the wave pull back, _it would be colossal, so high… no air… a float with the pause, she would call him to her,_ "It's coming," her cry…

Spilling over his primal abandon to touch her deeper…

"Mmm," his moan crushing her with ecstasy, rolling, and rippling, and filling her every cell with his sweetness. It was impossible, how much she loved this man, completely, completely, impossible.

)

Julia had drifted off to sleep in his arms, his chest her pillow – at least it would be for the first part of the night, before she would roll over and tuck herself up to sleep more deeply on her side, although that would not be for a little while yet. William was content, and close to sleep himself, when the telephone next to him on his night-table startled them both with its blaring ring.

It was George. He was needed. Remaining on the phone, William got up out of the bed, then leaned down to scoop up his pajamas from the floor, readying to dress.

Julia drowsily propped herself up on an elbow on his pillow and watched him handle the call. His pajamas thrown off, now down on the floor, bringing to her mind their passionate lovemaking earlier, and her insides stirred with the memory. _She saw no good reason not to take advantage of the opportunity to look her husband over, and her eyes widened and darkened, finding a guilty delight in their getting stuck here and there on his chiseled, manly… parts._

George explained into the phone that he was the constable on call, and he gave a brief report on what he had gotten from the desk constable's phone call, and then suggested that he drive his motor car over to pick up the detective at his home, and then the two of them would head over to where the harried report had claimed the ghoulish screams had come from. "Very good, George. That would be greatly appreciated…"

William hung up the phone and gave her his wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth look, admitting that at times such as this one it seemed that his choice of vocation came with some rather unpleasant requirements.

"I'll come with you," she yawned, tossing the covers aside and sitting up. "We'll have to wake Claire-Marie…"

William quickly, gallantly, winsomely, pressed a knee down into the mattress and gently pushed his lovely wife back down to lie flat, her fiery-soft curls spilling out all over his pillow. "Julia," his tone sure and confident, "we have no evidence that a pathologist is needed as of yet. You go back to sleep. I'll call for you if need be," he said, his voice growing softer as he spoke, his face leaning down closer and closer to hers. Tender, his kiss.

By the time he was dressed, and he had reached to turn off the lamp, she had dropped back off to sleep. He paused there and let the look of her – the look of the woman who was his soulmate – sink, settle, deeply solidify, into his core, and then he basked and awed at his own reaction to the implosion – mysterious and eternal as starlight, warm, glorious flooding, rippling, ruffling outward in all directions from his heart, like fireworks, no other word sufficient to describe it but _pure love,_ filling every single cell of him.

) (

George spoke, telling his superior and friend, "Blood-curdling screams were reported to be heard coming from the other side of this door, sir," the younger man impressing himself with the sturdy sound of his own voice, despite his internal reservations. _Every fiber of his body was tempted to tear away._ Unfortunately, his exhale of relief was overly loud as Detective Murdoch stepped up to the ill-omened door rather than himself, and the thought inside George's head scolded him that _a man as keenly aware as the detective would most certainly have detected the revealing sound,_ sendinghis eyes into rolling with self-reproach.

The horrors inside impressed, even for men who had seen much in their Constabulary careers. Dimly lit, their handheld torches blaring the details, there were two men with their throats slit opened. Huddled off to the side, the discovery chilling, Mr. Foley, insane in his rantings, bloody knife threateningly and incriminatingly still in hand, was rocking with his distress, flat with shock in his tone, confessing, apologizing, saying the Devil inside had made him do it…

) (

William had decided that despite there being dead bodies at the scene, the postmortems could wait until morning. He would go home for a few hours, Julia could remain undisturbed, sleeping soundly. He would lie down next to her, build up strength to face the day. _Performing these two postmortems was not an emergency, the cause of death, and the murderer too, it appeared, blatantly obvious. It even seemed the murderer had already confessed,_ but William wanted Julia's help – with her expertise on the human mind – for Mr. Foley presented as being wholly disturbed, to say the least.

) (

Mr. Foley brought up from cells, awaited his interrogation. Julia joined her husband after only a quick look at the victims in the morgue, proud that William had turned to her to accompany him, to help him, with his questioning of this challenging and intriguing suspect.

)

 _ **Gruesome, the blackening invasion of disgust spilling in from the outskirts into the pit of the stomach as gravity fell into the new reality – JAMES GILLIES WAS BACK! Beautiful Julia once again the nemesis' target, Gillies' clairvoyant statement that he was 'not done with her yet,' butchering William, slaughtering him so much more than if the vile monster's aim had been directed pointedly at him. William's heart knew, even though his rational brain considered both sides of the panic – true or not true – weighing the evidence and searching out every possibility including the worst along with the best – but his heart knew the danger was real, the villain the same as before – unkillable and interminable.**_

 _ **Gillies spoke with them through the tortured body of Mr. Foley, SAW them, vowed he was there to take William back with him to Hell, his need for staying attached, his sharp teeth locked in, never letting go, EVER, chilling to the bone. Poor Mr. Foley, used, brutalized, then driven to suicide as the only escape, haunted William with the ghostly flashbacks, the means of the desperate deed taken from a constable, the gun to his head, the screeching praying, the deafening blast, trigger pulled, too late to stop it, the odd and sickening heat and slick stickiness of the man's blood in his face. And behind the horror there was the pain of knowing that the only connection to their monster was gone, and with it their only chance of facing the threat head-on, now nothing more to do than to wait for James Gillies' inevitable attack.**_

)

Mr. Foley's corpse to the morgue, intermittent semblances of rationality struck through William's bright brain, remembering clues. Gillies – _unbelievable, but it WAS James Gillies_ – snidely offered him a scrap of a clue – the victims' names, relevant and important. The conversation ran through William's head again, his fists curling all over again with the memory of having had punched Gillies, with the wishing to do it again…

 _He had asked, "Why kill Robert Wilcox and Gerrard Berkeley?"_

" _Because of their names," Gillies' curt answer, "That's a clue, by the way," he had given._

 _Such a rush, the fear of incompetence infuriating him, William had asked, "What about their names?"_

 _It was amazing the way that Mr. Foley's face became the face of James Gillies as he had answered, "I can't tell you that. It won't be any fun if I just give away the game…"_

" _What's the game?" William had interrupted._

" _The same as it's always been. You and I having a ton of fun…" And William's head had spun with the whining of the high-pitched note of panic triggered by the memory of James Gillies using those exact same words back when William had come to on the floor of the cage, finding himself caught in Gillies' trap…_

 _Gillies had gone on, "But at the end of the day, someone wins, and someone loses. The question is, what are you in danger of losing? Or should I say, who?"_

 _And William had seen red in picturing Julia again, in the coffin in the grave, or his little boy, like in his nightmare after receiving the note about his speech – now most assuredly sent to them from James Gillies. The whole ordeal feeling like it was coming true right before his eyes._

 _Gillies had warned and shamed him, "Temper, temper, William. Be a good boy and I'll give you a hint. It's one I've given you before…"_

 _And William's brain had been swept back in time with his photographic memory to his bursting through the hotel room door to find Gillies sitting casually on the bed, back when he had buried Julia alive…_

" _ **You really are wasting time, Detective." - "How much time do I have?" – "37 minutes, by my calculations. Less, if she loses faith you'll find her in time." – "You mean if she panics. You've rigged some sort of device to be triggered by her heart rate." – "Oh, I like that. I almost wish I'd done it, but no. Tell you what, Detective. Here's a hint: You already have all the clues you need to find her. The question is: are you smart enough to figure it out in time?"**_

William's own brain broke off the memory, the feeling of dread so similar to now. Before Mr. Foley had shot himself, the tortured man had shared, speaking as James Gillies, impossible things. _Things no one could know, things from NOW!_ Suddenly a tirading rant of Gillies' replayed in William's head, Gillies words coming from inside of Mr. Foley, griping over how William had gone about, " _copulating with your little wife…"_ and then Gillies enjoyed his own joke _, "Of course, what else should I expect a COP such as yourself to do? But really William, so often!?, so passionately!?" he tsk-tsked, and then delivered his terrifying reproach, "The two of you warming your cockles, while I slaved away working so hard just to get your measly attention – convincing Foley to stay and wait for Wilcox, and then after that for Berkeley, to come… So much harder the second time, after the first. And then the whole plan almost destroyed, Foley weak, pathetic, was going to slash himself with the knife instead of Berkeley. The persecution and agony I made poor Mr. Foley imagine in his head that would be the consequence if he did so – exhausting. And you, William, at the time just pleasuring, pumping and pumping away, moaning and groaning_ _ **into HER**_ _…"_ And then Gillies had changed his voice, impersonating his ugly, blond, sugary disguise, Gillian James, gasping out, high-pitched, unnervingly imitating Julia, " _William, please, please, William,"_ and then Gillies' voice had abruptly returned back to its anger and he had spit out, " _The little witch! Begging for it,"_ concluding judgmentally, " _You, supposedly a Catholic man, William. You disgust me._ " And now William found himself questioning it, " _How could Gillies know… '_ _ **COCKLES**_ _,' the exact same word. He must have heard us somehow, heard Julia. There was no other way. Perhaps the parrot at the Windsor House Hotel…?"_

Rebecca James' voice echoing eerily off of the white walls of the morgue pulled him out of his thoughts…

"We aren't the first ones in here," her strange utterance profoundly significant.

They had found the devil inside of Mr. Foley, a marvel, the technology. It was a converted listening device of Professor Fressenden's design, William was sure of it. It matched the devices Neil Catfrey's sidekick, Schnozzy, had acquired months prior from the professor. They must have kept one for Catfrey to use, selling the others, some of them to the Home-Invasion Robber to be planted in the toffs' wives' purses he had intended to rob – and slimy Catfrey himself planting one **in Julia's purse**. James Gillies must have purchased the others. But this one was wired up, surgically implanted, INSIDE of Mr. Foley's body, put in through a cut in the man's chest, the miniscule speaker hooked up to Foley's inner ear in his head. Gillies had driven the man mad, ordered him, as his devil inside, to murder, and then to taunt his ultimate victims – him and Julia.

When questioning Professor Fressenden in the Interrogation Room it had been Julia who had figured out the problem first – the device sent signals only one way, from Gillies to Foley's head, so there would be no way for Gillies to HEAR them respond during their conversations – and then the spark had fired. They found the listening device in the Interrogation Room, _**and then the one under their bed!**_ Followed the trails, the wires taking them to the monster's abandoned lair, Gillies' hideaway halfway between the Stationhouse and their home. A note left behind with the equipment, amongst the voice recordings, Gillies warned, in his own distinct and haunting voice…

"Detective Murdoch. I'm sorry to have missed you. I look forward to seeing you very soon. Remember, you have all the clues you need."

Once again, immediately, a constable was to be assigned to guard their house at all times. It seemed unavoidable – the holding of the breath.

)

Professor Fressenden had sent them to a jeweler named Leonard Wright, the man who had most likely been the one to make the microscopic device James Gillies had surgically placed inside of Mr. Foley. Higgins had brought Mr. Wright in for questioning. While informing the detective that the jeweler/inventor was waiting for him in the Interrogation Room, Henry commented that there was something that seemed odd, "but might be merely a coincidence." It was the inventor's address, at the corner of Robert and Willcocks, the two street names matching the names of the first victim – Robert Wilcox. That was the clue Gillies had alluded to, the clue about the names! Brilliant, fast, William asked Higgins what was located at the intersection of the other victim's names – _**what was located at the intersection of Gerrard and Berkeley?**_ And then instantly, William experienced the pummeling, plummeting terror when his own brain rushed forward to answer – " _Veronica Bowden's house,"_ and William relived the nightmare with the talking dolls all over again.

) (

Veronica Bowden was grownup now, William noted to himself as the two of them spoke on her front porch. The young woman grasped so much more than she had before, now understanding, much, much, more, the torment this gallant Detective Murdoch had gone through back then, when she, as a kidnapped little girl, had been used by the abominable, but charming, James Gillies to harm and destroy the one man in the world who had outsmarted him in the past…

 _ **THERE WAS ANOTHER DOLL!**_

James Gillies must have installed the other microscopic listening device inside this new doll, because for Veronica Bowden the doll had only made a crackling sound when she tried to play it. But now, now that William Murdoch pulled the string, it worked perfectly, giving Gillies' intended victim, his obsession – Detective William Henry Murdoch, the dreaded message most clearly. The doll played a recording for William to hear. It was of his beloved Julia's voice answering the phone at the morgue, then **HIS OWN VOICE** – most dastardly it had been made up of recorded portions of William's own voice patched together to say whatever it was that Gillies had wanted him to be heard to say. And now William listened to the recording inside the doll, and he heard himself being played back for Julia to hear, Julia thinking it was him that spoke to her (much the same way as James Gillies had done with Julia's voice back when he was framing her for Darcy's murder, and Julia's voice had been heard on the phone by the hateful and disdaining housekeeper employed in Darcy's home, announcing Julia's intended, but faked, visit to supposedly makeup with her husband).

William's heart seemed to drop to the floor, for Gillies had tricked Julia – tricked her into thinking **HE** wanted her to drop everything – to tell no one. To rush home as fast as she could… "Julia, our son's life depends on it…"

 _ **James Gillies had Julia again! He had her again!**_ **William had to get home! He had to stop Gillies from hurting her! My God, his doubt and panic flew through him –** _ **What if he was too late?!**_

 _) (_

… _– …_

) (

On the bike. Never pedaled faster. His homburg, gone with the gale of the wind. House in view. No constable at guard on the porch. Gillies would have Julia inside. **He would have the baby!**

Sneak in. _Heart pounding_. Push on. Need an element of surprise. _**Gillies won't know about the secret passageways…**_

) (

 _Constable Warren, and the housekeeper, and the nanny, all chloroformed and gagged and bound and shipped off in the back of a plain-looking, inconspicuous, wagon, to be kept away long enough to return only to see the aftermath. William's little baby boy had been an easy hostage for Gillies to acquire. Gun held to the tike's head, the child's wimpy mother had been putty in his hands. Oh, how he had reveled in seeing her so helpless. She was desperate to do whatever he demanded of her. The_ _ **great**_ _Dr. Julia Ogden reduced to a feeble, tremoring cow, begging for him to spare the child's life. The small boy, his gorgeous William-like eyes mostly droopy or closed, an unavoidable side-effect of the opiate drug injected to quiet the child, adorably the boy held onto his stuffed rabbit and passively watched the adults around him. Finally, it was all coming to fruition, Mr. Foley setting the mood so long ago, sneaking into this very house to take the little Master Murdoch's photograph, and to plant the listening device under the soiled Murdoch marriage bed. Then, the timing had been perfect, Wilcox and Berkeley doing just as he had planned, going to their deaths, and Foley, perfectly, serving as his faithful, devil-possessed, conduit. Then the masterfully laid clues followed so well by the one and only Detective William Murdoch. Nothing now but to wait. He had to discipline himself not to be giddy._

) (

The darkness in the tunnel ended at the thin slit of dim light around the door into William's workroom. Stealthy, William entered and closed the secret passageway door behind him. _There were supplies here_. Off with his jacket, _first the bullet proof vest_ – William noting the irony _for he had first used the invention on Crabtree to trick Gillies, back when they first met, when James Gillies and Robert Perry had murdered their professor._ Next, and _most importantly_ , he laced up the latest invention on his right forearm over his shirt sleeve, then covered it with his suit jacket. _His last trick_ , William found a small mirror to use _to see around corners,_ and with that a memory tangented off in his mind, oddly, a pleasant one from when Father Keegan had first met Julia, visiting with them in their hotel suite for dinner, and Father Keegan reveled in telling Julia about _his boyhood experiment with bending light around the rectory's shed_ , the unexpected intensification by the mirrors burning the structure down…

William held his breath and listened intently at the workroom door, ready, heart pounding in his chest. Only deadly silence, no baby crying, no voices, no footsteps, no thumps or bumps, the silence, so deadly. It was audible, the click as the doorknob turned and disengaged its metallic hold on the door, _audible – but unlikely to have been heard,_ William breathed to himself. The door opened silently. The mirror held up just so, _the coast was clear through the playroom to the stairs_. William removed his shoes. Planning ahead, _the 4_ _th_ _step squeaks_ , he stepped out, his own breathing was _so loud he was sure it would give him away._

Perfectly silent, a pause at the bend, the corner, of the halfway point of the stairs. The mirror, wiggly in his hand. _Steady it. Focus…_

 _WHAM – the panic flared!_

" _Stay still, slow, smooth!"_ William ordered himself not to jerk, not to move in reaction to the sight. _**Gillies was at the top of the stairs waiting on the bench in the foyer. He had William Jr! He had a GUN!**_

William gave himself permission to breathe, and silently, silently, he tucked the mirror into his pocket. His heart had sunk – _there was no way to sneak up on Gillies. Gillies would see him step around the bend of the staircase. He had no advantage now. He would be seen. The element of surprise would yield very little._

 _No choice but to go_ , William stepped around the corner into Gillies' view.

Unable to hide his surprise, Gillies jumped to his feet and aimed the gun must pointedly at William's head, the upper portion of this most precious target all that he had a full glimpse of, because, _true to form_ , he had been taken by surprise as, _deviously somehow,_ the detective had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared rising up the steps towards him. His head muddled and jumbled for a moment, he remembered to _keep only the right side of his profile facing in the detective's direction_ , as he managed to contain his gasp. He did, however, need to clear his throat before he spoke in order to sound appropriately snide in his quip, saying just as he had planned to do, just as he had so deliciously fantasized doing, **"How nice of you to drop in, William** ," and his inner counsel trumpeted his success in pulling off the tone of nonchalance he had dreamed of for all this time.

William held his opened arms wide as he stepped cautiously up each step, closer and closer to his quarry, nearer and nearer to the danger that the unpredictable and disturbed man would shoot. _More worried for William Jr. than for himself,_ William was grateful that the barrel of the gun was aimed at him – although his head lacked the secret protection of the silk-lined, metal-plated, vest. His own lack of a weapon plainly displayed to his enemy that he was unarmed, that he was not a threat, the deception designed in the hope that Gillies would drop his guard. William's eyes darted down to his baby son perched up against the foyer wall with his stuffed rabbit – " _Blanco,_ " William's brain said it inside of his head. The child sat quietly on the foyer bench, but _he was not right, unfocused, weary… perhaps drugged?"_ William's eyes, _away from the danger too long_ , leapt back to meet the attentive gaze of James Gillies. **"Where is she?"** he demanded.

Feigning innocence, Gillies wondered, **"Who?"**

" **Julia!"** William felt his teeth grit.

 _Casually,_ James Gillies leaned back against the foyer wall, pleased with being in between William and his son. He risked switching the gun over to his left hand, trying to impress his confidence in his complete control of the situation. _The game would be so much more fun that way_. Now, _now finally_ , he would get his chance to tease, **"You know what's funny? Well, I guess you won't find it that amusing, but you will appreciate the irony when you discover it…"**

" **Discover what?"** William burst with impatience.

 _Infuriatingly smug, the way he said it_ , **"That it was you who killed her,"** Gillies answered matter-of-factly.

How suddenly the floor felt to drop from underneath him, and William fought with all he had to stay strong. His irritation evaporated away, all around only terror and doubt, William so sure, so very sure, that _Gillies would not have killed Julia, at least not yet, the cat wanting more to play with, than to end, the mouse. Gillies would want both Julia and his son alive, to use as bait to further torture him with._

Evil, Gillies' little chuckle. He explained, **"After all William, I must give credit where credit is due, and it was always YOU who possessed a mind creative and brilliant enough to challenge mine, to inspire mine. It was YOUR idea, back when I told you your beloved Julia had 37 minutes left to live, but less if she panicked, me knowing all along that she was buried six-feet underground at the time. But you, you William, you suggested it then, THAT I HAD RIGGED UP SOME SORT OF DEVICE TO BE TRIGGERED BY HER HEART RATE. Perfect, paradoxically, that it was your own invention, your own Truthilizer, that would do the job…"** The fiend's eyes glanced up the stairs.

 _And William pictured Julia tied down on their bed, the blue liquid in the transparent glass coil splashing and lifting higher and higher…_

" **Her heart still beats… slowly enough,"** Gillies offered hope and gave more clues, **"for the dynamite has not yet exploded. It's so maniacal really, the victim having control over their own fate. I've got it on a ten-second delay – ten seconds for her to gain control over her emotions – no matter what she overhears coming from down here. But really William, I should say, you should be more concerned for this little fella,"** he said, and then _shifted to move closer to William Jr…_

 _And William's heart raced to a primal thundering in his chest, seeming to pound and thrust to such a height that it sickened his throat with prickles of nausea, because…_

The gun, so hard and cold and venomously cruel, the gun turned, changed its orientation in the small, and yet enormously unpassable space between William and his only son in all the world, to rest merely an inch from the innocent two-year-old's black curls.

Gillies lifted and wriggled and malevolently shook the gun…

And William's eyes filled with tears. His face paled, sapped of blood with his agonous fear. _Drainingly helpless._

Gillies found himself admiring, admiring the beauty of this man he had adored and obsessed with for so long. _Tears, astounding, the man is even more breathtaking with pools of tears in his eyes…_

His knees buckling, his head dizzied, William quivered, **"Please let him go…"**

 _And inside, Gillies snuck a smile…_

But then abruptly, William's expression hardened, his jaw clenched, his teeth gritted tight, fists curled up. The detective was suddenly bigger, fiercer. And there was a ringing shift in the air as William leaned forward towards attack, fists rising up, he threatened, **"If you hurt him…"**

" **Easy Tiger,"** Gillies menaced, adding his other hand to steady the gun's aim at William Jr.'s head.

Fighting the turbulence with all his might, William stopped himself. His head screamed at him to _think of something._

Eased by his regaining the upper hand, Gillies disclosed, **"I've been watching you, detective. These last few years I've basked in the glow of your happiness. You got married. You built her this impressive house…"** momentarily the gun wavered as he gestured to the walls and his eyes glanced up at the ceiling above them…

 _And for a split second, a part of William's brain remembered that Julia was upstairs in their bedroom, wired up to the heart-monitoring explosive device in their bedroom…_

" **But then, to read in the Gazette… I was so impressed. Your courage and skills, such a cool head under pressure. You are so inspirational, William. Such an astonishing accomplishment, your heroic surgery to deliver this beautiful baby boy here,"** the villain flicked the gun towards William Jr. again, " **Your 'Little Man…'** **I just had to try my own hand at it."** Vilely cunning, Gillies' words twisted into William's gut as he elaborated, **"I probably would never have thought of it myself, to act as God, to cut open a man – AND KEEP HIM ALIVE. I knew I could implant the listening device INSIDE of poor Mr. Foley, thanks to you."** Gillies re-aimed the gun squarely at William Jr. and concluded, " **Well, it seems as though you are constructing a tiny, perfect little life, William. It'd be such a shame to see that all come undone."**

" **What do you want with me, Gillies?"** William asked, and finally they had gotten to the crux.

" **Well, I need your help with something I'm having a little trouble with,"** Gillies gave suavely.

 _Oh, the eruptions in William's gut, pure toxic dread_. **"Help with what…?"**

)

Her blue eyes, wide with terror and urgency, were pinned to the liquid in the tube. _Her heart had jumped,_ hearing voices downstairs, muffled through the closed bedroom door, yet magnified by her alertness… _"William's voice, definitely William – He was here! …and Gillies," she could hear him too._

Julia's inner-voice directed her, " _Breathe. Easy Julia. Stay_ …" She heard it rather than felt it, there was a big exhale… " _Stay quiet, calm. Breathe. Nothing to be done but breathe…_ "

The blue liquid…

 _It had been so beautiful, so wonderful, when it had shot up in the coiled tube at William's side all those years ago – proof that William was in love with her, and back then, so delightfully public._

The swirled, trapped, blue liquid coolly hovered there, tremoring, now just below the line that would make the bomb explode…

 _She needed to calm down_. Then a memory played, of her crying so violently that she had vomited with the distress, years ago now, after William had ogled a shapely, pretty young waitress right in front of her, back when she was pregnant, and he had ended up terribly worried that her degree of upset would harm the baby, harm her, and he had tried to help her, to soothe her troubled and harried wailing. He had held her, and rocked her, as they sat together on their bathroom floor, and he had asked her then, in an effort to calm her, thinking to turn her sickened, overwrought emotions to cool rational thought, William had asked her then, _"How many bones are there in the human wrist, Julia," and she had answered him, shakily, "Eight," and she had felt the soothing of the calm coming in, and he had breathed, and he asked her to breathe too, and she had…_

)

The distribution of power should have altered, but strangely, it had not, even though now it was William who held Gillies' revolver, pointedly aimed at the monster himself.

Gillies turned, letting the light catch on the rock-crushed side of his face, and he watched William's face change, react, _somehow NOT cringe_. So gratefully, _he did not see pity_ … slightly, _he was sure of it_ , there was pain, sympathy, _dare he think it – kindness_.

" **What happened to you?"** William asked without thinking first.

Gillies felt the hope – the hope of eliciting guilt, as he answered, **"I jumped off a bridge, remember? I smashed my face on one rock. Crushed my spine on another, driving bone shards into my vertebral nerves…"**

It whispered out of William unintentionally, the understanding, the awareness, " **You're in pain,"** he grasped the stimulus now, the reason behind Gillies' request that he kill him.

" **Pain?!"** Gillies chuckled at the understatement, mocking it. **"It is AGONY at the center of every thought, every dream, every breath, every heartbeat…"**

Shooting William's mind, for a second, _back upstairs to Julia…_

" **I've tried opiates,"** Gillies continued alluding to the details, drawing William's eyes to follow his own as he focused down onto the items on the foyer bench alongside of the sagging and woozy baby, signifying the syringe, with its sharp, piercing, needle portending the threat, and a half-emptied vial of heroine next to it. **"They just dull the mind. And a mind like mine? Well, that's like painting over the Sistine Chapel. Only someone such as yourself could fully understand,"** he explained.

William's face wrinkled into scorn, his skepticism rising to the surface. **"Why not just kill yourself?** " he pushed the obvious.

 _William could not have been prepared for the answer, it would throw him, much as Gillies' kissing him on the railroad tracks all those years ago had done – and panic would set in, for the tottering, the distraction, had cost him back then, and it could cost him now – so much more now._

As if it were always a known fact, Gillies replied, **"Because I want my life to be taken by the object of my admiration and ardour. And because I want…"**

" **Ardour?"** William interrupted with his bewilderment.

Sly, the disturbed man's smile, **"Don't you remember…"** he needled and pricked, **"our moment on the bridge?"**

Shaking off the aversion, the creepy, creepy, skin-crawling of the memory, William strove to sound firm as he said coldly, " **I'm not going to shoot you, Mr. Gillies. But if it's any consolation, - I will watch you hang."**

There was a gasp, a warning that the deepest, most underlying truth was about to be revealed. And then James Gillies told the object of his infatuation, finally, **"Oh William, but that most definitely won't do. You cannot be allowed to choose the law this time. YOU MUST COME WITH ME TO HELL. I will not go without knowing you will eventually be mine – not hers. Here – now, YOU must commit the ultimate sin."**

Gillies knew, knew, that the man he had studied and coveted and yearned for, and hated and focused on, for practically all of his adult life, would find THIS PARTICULAR ACT to be the most difficult thing he would ever do in his entire life. _It was the magic of his plan, for the detective was nothing if not predictable. And, truth be told, it was likely the man's morality, his undeniable GOODNESS, that James Gillies had always found most alluring._ He had struggled the most with this part of his plan. Thus, the hostages, the miraculous little child hostage…

" **William…"** Gillies' tone announced a change.

 _And it terrified William to his core._

 _Impossibly fast now,_ the syringe was in Gilles' hand, the sharp needle at William Jr.'s neck…

" **Heroin is a wonderful drug, but too much can be deadly, as I'm sure you know,"** Gillies licked his lips with anticipation, **"Your son's beautiful brown eyes, beyond a doubt this little fellow has his father's eyes, they will roll back, and he'll just stop breathing. Painless – for him, but for you…"**

 _Not a breath had been taken…_

Gillies speech rushed forward, picking up the tempo.

Matching the racing of William's heart, the pounding gushing of blood in William's ears. _Choices disappearing…_

" **I know what you're thinking,"** Gillies evilly took away the final option, **"Can you get to me, overpower me without killing me, before I inject him? At what point does the risk of his death trump your desire to see justice done?"**

 _Calling every ounce of himself,_ William's jaw hardened…

' _ **click**_ ' the tiny sound of William's triggering of the empty cartridge of the revolver stole the air….

" **Oh, my goodness,"** Gillies gasped trying to slow the shocking spin of the room around him. _"He would have done it!"_ Gillies' brain screamed the undeniable fact.

Amazing, the disappointment, the anger, in William's voice as he said, **"You took the bullets out,"** furious for being duped, horrified that the nightmare was still going on.

Gillies' heart fluttered and pounded so that he wobbled with the faintness. _Giddy, he was giddy_. " _Answer the man,"_ he told himself, hearing himself explain, **"All but one."**

The two men's eyes locked.

Gillies battling, for it took immense effort to keep the syringe at the child's neck. Gillies told himself as much as he unshrouded it for the detective, **"I needed to know, and now I do. See, I wanted to die, I did, but when you pulled the trigger, all I could think was, 'NOT YET! There's still so much I want to do!"**

 _Insane, his laugh, demonic, ghoulish with glee._

Finding seriousness, for it was necessary to have seriousness to be in charge, seriousness so as to conduct the rest of the symphony, Gillies stood up straighter, adjusted the angle of the syringe at William's son's vulnerable little neck. _He had not solidified the plan from here, but Gillies reminded himself that he had thought it was possible, and then Gillies scolded himself because he should have known, it was so obvious – after all it was he himself who had stacked the odds against his dying by loading only one bullet into the revolver… And he realized now – HOW VERY MUCH HE WANTED THE MAN BEFORE HIM, he wanted William Murdoch, and not in HELL, but now, now while they were both alive_. **"Now drop that gun detective, or say goodbye to this little chap,"** he ordered.

William yielded, flipped the revolver in his hand to turn the angle, the aim, away from Gillies, then slowly leaned forward to put the gun down on the foyer bench. Eyes locked on, Gillies hurried to grab it. _Only one bullet_ , still he was glad it was in his control. _He preferred his syringe threat anyway_ , he repositioned near the boy and tucked the revolver in his trousers waistband.

" **If you hurt him…"** William's world had never plummeted and soared so fast. His fingers _reached for the secret button. It was now. It had to be now…_

Gillies went on with his gushing, **"William, I want to thank you. You have given me the gift of life. A new sense of purpose. For that, I thank you…"** Gillies smiled devilishly, for he would wholly sever the man now with these haunting, poignant words, **"We are going to have so much…"**

 _Distinct_ , the **BLAST** so loud it stunned, **A GUNSHOT RIPPED THROUGH THE AIR** , afterwards in the wake of it, the rubbery burn of the smoke of a bullet fired, _pungent in the nose._

)

Julia's body… _She'd thought she had been ready for it!_ Her body jerked off of the mattress with the **BANG** of the gun being fired down the stairs, on the other side of the closed bedroom door. Momentarily forgetting about the alarming blue liquid in the tube, its influence over the dynamite, her whole being whispering and yelling at the same time, _"Only one shot! Must be the baby!"_ Julia's imagination sent up the horrifying image of their beautiful, beautiful baby, William Jr.'s head, his soft black curls, drenched, soaked, covered in blood. She figured so quickly, _that it would be the baby_ , the one bullet, for she knew _Gillies had had a gun,_ and that _William was not as likely to have brought one_ , and _Gillies – so obsessed with William, wouldn't kill him_ , the crazed, depraved man would _want William to suffer_ , to be rendered completely lost and helpless and desolate from seeing him murder, _slaughter_ , his son. _There were tears on her cheeks…_ Her mind split off, her body actually _**FEELING**_ that miraculous little baby in her arms, at her breast, then the glow in her heart – her 'Little One' gazing up at her with his – with William's – big brown eyes, and she heard him, clear as day, so sweetly say to her, " _Yes Mommy,"_ and then she watched him toddle and run away, his little arms up for balance, such concentration in each step, and the grief drowned in.

A part of her thought that she _wouldn't have to worry about her heartrate triggering the bomb, for her heart had done nothing but drop with grief_ , her beautiful baby, shot dead. It was unbearable, unbearable, the pain. She imagined ending the torture, the agony of it, she could _set off the bomb on purpose_ , Julia imagining herself writhing and thrashing about, right there in their bed. But her subconscious halted the thoughts instantly, for she saw the future in her mind, William downstairs hearing the blast, after seeing the horrors of their beautiful son shot dead right before his eyes, and William rushing up the stairs, barreling in to see her… blown to bits, her blood, her tissues, her pieces, everywhere. And she knew _she couldn't hurt him so._ And she knew _if he were alive, she could survive it. She could, if she still had William_. And then she knew that, _as long as there was one of them, as long as either William Jr. or William were alive,_ _she would do everything she could to_ _ **stay alive, for him**_ _,_ whichever one of them remained. And she told herself, in her own fairy-godmotherish voice, " _Think of something pleasant_ ," and the memory came, and with it a degree of acceptance searing the pain of loss in her chest, this particular memory probably spurred by her having heard William's voice down the stairs, she remembered the beauty of watching from the kitchen entrance while William held and sang to their tiny infant son, sang that sad, sad song, the one that stung with its hope after having undergone excruciating suffering, William's beautiful voice inside her head, inside her chest, sang, " _A-maze-ing Grace, how sweet the sound. To save a wretch li-ike me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was lost, but now… I see…"_ so sweetly singing to their tiny little infant son, down in the warm kitchen, skin to skin, intimate and loving, as he cooked bacon at the stove, and the crispy scent of it watered in her nostrils…

 **BUT THEN**!

She heard it ring so loudly, up the stairs, through the closed bedroom door… " _The baby was crying…"_ And she didn't hear herself fall into the wailing, " **NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! No! No, no, no…"** her last-ditch effort at denying it, _before she heard the whisper in her soul_ , and there was no longer any air in the world, _**"It was William who was dead!"**_ and such a panic took her that she was sure she would collapse through the floor. " **William! William,"** her own sobbing so forlorn she felt it echoing in her deepest crevices and reverberating out to the stars, an anguish, unimaginable and interminable. And a part of herself ordered her to _stop crying_ so violently, _for she would set off the bomb, and her baby… she heard him crying… her baby needed her._

And then the baby's crying was coming closer – up the stairs, and her heart pitched up with terror for she pictured Gillies, covered in William's blood, and their baby, covered in William's blood, her little baby boy in the monster's arms, coming up the stairs, and she figured Gillies would torture her by shooting their sweet child right in front of her, Gillies knowing that in his doing so there would be no way for her to control the racing of her heart, and she would explode herself, and probably Gillies too, and they'd all die, and a part of her took consolation in it, for maybe it was better if they were all dead…

And there was a thump, _the doorknob, she was sure it was the doorknob…_

" **Julia…"**

 _William's voice, his beautiful, perfect, wonderful voice._

" _It was William!" the deluge and cascade of overwhelming joy rushed in…_

" **Julia, stay calm. We're alright. William Jr.'s alright. I'm alright…"**

" _It must have been more than ten seconds_ …" somewhere in the room the hint of the blue liquid.

Julia lifted her head from the mattress and stretched to see. The door opened, and she saw HIM holding their wailing baby.

" **He just got scared, when the gun fired. He's O.K."** William reassured, his voice so low, overcompensating for his own thundering heart.

" **William,"** she dared not say it too loudly.

" **Gillies is… no threat. I shot him,"** he told as he came in, rushed closer…

And her blue eyes, so wide, so stunned, glanced down to see the apparatus, holding out the small gun, at the end of his sleeve. She remembered it now, him working on the invention, amazed at the tiny little gun that was hidden up the sleeve. _He was so brilliant. She loved him so much_ , and she fell into shaking with her sobs of relief, and he was instantly at her side trying to calm her. The baby with him, brought to her. Irrational, so unlike him, to risk so much.

" **Shh. Shh. You need to stay calm, Julia. Shh,"** he coaxed as he covered her with his body, heavy, sturdy, tender, stilling her waves, their beautiful baby boy next to her, held tight to her, the child's bawling quieting. " _William would know how to defuse the bomb_ ," she told herself. _He had gone down a rocket shaft and defused a rocket aimed at NYC. He would know what to do. She needed to calm down_. She forced herself to exhale, then again, slower, longer, deeper… again…

)

Suddenly the urgency to ensure that James Gillies was STILL downstairs, was STILL unconscious, was STILL harmless, flared, and William bolted down the stairs.

Julia hurried behind him with William Jr., William's panic tilting her into coping mode, a profound strength surged in, and Julia knew it would be alright now, somehow.

The front door was ajar, Gillies in a pile at the threshold, and such a surprise to see Miss Rosevear, the young newspaper reporter and the Murdoch Appreciation Society woman, standing over the disarmed, unmoving monster. She had walloped him with a statue from in their foyer. It remained gripped tight in her hand.

Wild, her look as she said, "He was about to get away…"

She explained to them excitedly that Veronica Bowden had phoned her – had told her about the message in the doll, and the way Detective Murdoch had flown away with such haste. She reminded the detective that she had always been a part of the fringe of his nightmare encounters with James Gillies, from the very first moment when the wealthy little girl had been kidnapped…

And William remembered it then...

 _He had questioned Miss Rosevear back then – long before the Murdoch Appreciation Society even existed. Ruby Rosevear was Veronica Bowden's babysitter. She had seen James Gillies when he was dressed as Gillian James and back then he, dressed as a blond woman, had giving George a statement. William remembered that he had found the young woman to be… odd back then, when he spoke with her out in front of the Bowden house that day, Miss Rosevear awestruck by him even back then._

Miss Rosevear bounced with her excess energy. "I thought you might need some help," she exulted.

All eyes dropped down to consider Gillies' flat-out body lying motionlessly on the floor. There was a bump on his forehead, and a stain and a trickle of blood through his bullet-torn shirt, near his heart – the small amount of blood indicating that the gunshot had not been enough to have killed him. Oddly, there was relief in the room as they watched his chest rising and sinking – he was breathing.

Julia said, thanking, giving praise to, the young woman, "It seems we did."

"It was a rubber bullet," William explained, taking off his jacket, showing them the rods and springs, the latest invention, up his sleeve. Then he busied himself in removing it from his arm.

"I see," Julia found herself admiring her husband even more.

"Ingenious!" Miss Rosevear raved, "The Murdoch Appreciation Society will be much impressed. Not to mention my paper…" _but then_ _suddenly she worried they would not want her to write the story!_ "It is alright… that a write about…" her eyes bulged wide under raised eyebrows and her hands gestured down at Gillies and then swung around to include them, and the invention, "all this?!"

The Murdoch's agreed, boundlessly grateful that she had stopped Gillies from escaping justice once more, and recognizing that, with her help, it finally was, truly, over. They would see James Gillies hang. They would be safe from this particular monster from now on.

) (

Later that evening, after half of Stationhouse #4 had helped haul James Gillies directly to the Don River Jail, the doctor on call at the prison tending to the previously-convicted man's wounds rather than Julia, and Eloise and Claire-Marie and Constable Warren had returned safely, the Murdoch's recovered together in their home. William Jr. slowly came out from under the effects of being drugged with heroine. Gratefully, he seemed fine. His bedtime had been a bit late that night, however, coming more officially at one point when his mother awoke in her comfy spot, finding herself sandwiched between her sleeping husband and her sleeping son, all three of them cuddled together in William's reclining chair in front of the safe, warm, crackling fire.

After tucking their toddler into bed, staying with him until he had drifted off to sleep, and his breathing was cadenced and deep and slow, and they were certain that he was safe, William and Julia decided some warm hot chocolate would help settle their own nerves before they themselves went to bed. Talk between them at the kitchen table was light.

Julia suggested that James Gillies could also be the killer who dumped the body that she and her students discovered on their property at the Body Farm back on the Fall Equinox. Her eyes glanced into his from over the brim of her hot chocolate cup, saying right before her sip, "Gillies would have enjoyed watching the press tear into us as they did. Remember, they even called for the city to force us to close down the Body Farm, riled up the public about it."

"Mm, I remember," William gave, "But there's no evidence of Gillies' involvement." William sipped from his own cup, her turn now.

"Yes, I suppose you're right," she agreed.

His mind had chased after the idea in the interim. A sigh caught her attention. "There was a connection…" he wrinkled his face, thinking it insignificant, "Gillies and the Home Invasion Robber, and Neil Catfrey too, with Sally, stealing the Pink Panther Diamond, they all used Professor Fessenden's listening devices…"

" _He was right!"_ Julia's felt her excitement grow.

William took another sip, then placed the cup down and added, "But that was all because of Catfrey's accomplice – that little bald guy with the glasses, Schnozzy. Schnozzy purchased all the listening devices from the professor, then he sold them to the Robber, and to Gillies, or more likely to Gillies' man, Mr. Foley, God rest his soul."

Now it was Julia who wrinkled her face… _"That poor man."_

Julia's heart thumped, for she saw something on William's face, _something was troubling him_. His expression tugged at her, and he looked into her eyes, and for a moment she thought he might tell her what it was. But instead he wrinkled a corner of his mouth, seeming to admit to her that she was right, and she knew that there was something bothering him. Subtly, she gave him a nod. They both knew that it usually took him time, time to wholly know his feelings, particularly when it came to the big things. She would wait. She trusted him completely.

William pinched his lips together and smiled, and then he chuckled, and in his own mind he reassured himself that _he would tell Father Clements, first in Confession, then probably later when they talked as friends. He would tell Julia, when he'd worked it all out better. He imagined that they would have one of their heart-to-heart talks, maybe some night after he had had trouble sleeping and she would come downstairs with him, to offer comfort while they shared hot chocolate. For now, though, she did not know about Gillies' disconcerting request that William be the one to kill him, she did not know that he had pulled the trigger with the intent to do just that, that in taking that action he had confronted an eternity in Hell. It was all too overwhelming right now. Later, later when he could see that everything would be alright…_

Cups empty, William reached for Julia's hand, felt her eyes on him as he watched his fingers rub across her wedding rings. She reached over from around the corner of their kitchen table to cup his cheek, pulling his eyes up to meet hers with her touch…

"Shall we?" she suggested.

Then, as the clinking ceramic cups and the clanking metal pot were rinsed and deposited into William's dishwashing cupboard for Eloise to deal with in the morning, Julia paused at the kitchen sink. Her deep sigh set the mood, and it beckoned him, _called him down somewhere so deep inside_ that he felt his core reorient and become wholeheartedly drawn to her.

He had an enormous yearning to touch her, somehow certain that _he could soothe it_ , somehow William knowing from her sound that she was feeling tremendous pain. He stepped up behind her and touched her shoulder, prompting her to turn to face him.

There was a rawness to her look, an honesty so powerful that it ached.

"William, when I heard the gunshot, and I thought the baby…" Julia's eyes pierced into his with her terror and her grief, and she watched his face take on the burden, and she felt her throat swelling shut and her eyes filling with heat, and she was sure _he could see her tears, and she would not hide them from him, she loved him so, so much._ Her voice squeaked terribly as she pushed out the words, a tremendous effort squeezing them through her held breath, "But, my God William, when the baby cried… and then I thought… I thought that it was y…" she gasped, "I thought that it was you that got shot. It felt like half of myself was gone… without you, William."

Julia fell then, fell into his arms, fell into her own sobs. Embraced there, the heat, the humid dampness and the salt of her tears, and the promise between them, the promise of care, all of that bathed at the wounds.

And after a time, like an ocean wave rolling in, Julia felt strength come back into her. She stood herself up, the independence of it, the motion, separating them. William let her go.

Space between them, suddenly she was embarrassed, or perhaps it was troubled, and she stepped away further, she looked away from his eyes.

Push and pull, William lingered, held to her aura, not allowing the distance between them be enough to lose the feel of her, nor her the feel of him. He moved to her once more, sensing her wanting him there.

So low, her speaking to him, _such that he needed to strain to hear her_ , she told him her fear, her lesson learned, "I've let myself fall in love with you too much, too much to survive it."

 _His reaction was so authentic, so spontaneous, and so unexpected, that it worked completely to quiet the turbulence in the waters._

William raised a doubtful eyebrow at her and wrinkled his face, the gesture unexpectedly playful. _They would be alright, they both knew it, their connection strong and moldable._

Figuring that his joking around had earned it, Julia gave her husband and her soulmate a hearty two-handed shove in the chest. "What?" she asked him with a self-conscious giggle.

William teased, "Well, as I am the one you love, the one you claim to love TOO much, I venture to say that I don't believe it is possible to love someone TOO much." He reached up and used his thumb to brush away a trail of tears down her cheek. Ducking, catching her eyes, he tucked his fingers under her chin and lifted her face up to him, then wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her.

His charm was affecting her, she felt it inside, warm and glowing.

But then William stepped in closer… _something electric about it_ , the air between them tingling as it became magnetically charged – sexual and romantic. His breath rushed, lush and pounding, down her neck and rumbled over the rounded bulges of her bosom sneaking under the confines of her low-cut blouse, spilling, hot and fast, through the crack of her cleavage. His eyes, so huge and so dark and so staggeringly gorgeous, William's eyes stole her ability to breathe before they brazenly dropped down to her body and she felt herself heaving and panting, and he soaked in every inch of her in. _Oh, he wanted to touch_ , with such anticipation, _she knew he wanted to touch her_. Closer, his lips dangerously close, and it seized her, she was captured by the familiar wrenching down low, pure unabated desire, throbbing, gushing, drenching with lust for him.

He brought his lips to hover over her ear and he said, "I think we should go upstairs. There's an experiment I'd like to try."

"Oh?" Julia answered him, trying with all her might to sound in control, scientific somehow. _But my God_ , the dizziness, the dropping and the floating and the spinning, the edge roared, loomed ahead, like the rumble and the steam warning of a towering waterfall further on up the stream.

"I want to see if I can love you too much," _she felt his smile, so lusciously cocky, before his kiss._ The kiss breaking off, the angle changing, he said, "See if I can kiss you – too much…"

Julia couldn't help herself, she moaned, moaned deep in her throat, as he kissed her again, deeper, and her own breathing raced so, surged out of her, betraying any hope of hiding her longing.

 _Oh my, William Murdoch could kiss,_ and she felt him, with both of his hands, grasp her head, his fingers in her hair, tenderly, but firm, firm so that she found herself pinned in place as he broke off the kiss, and he gorged her chin succulently in his mouth, and sucked, and nibbled, and so collapsed her that she grew heavy, heavy, in his arms… devouring her, from her jaw to her ear, slurpy and luscious, his perfect voice warm inside her head telling her, promising her, "I want to see if I can taste you TOO much." The sounds of him kissing and breathing at her ear tore her apart inside with wanting him. And still, he teased her more, "I want to see if I can love you – TOO long…" _My God, the way he moved against her,_ "If I can love you – TOO deep," _his rhythm summoned her_ , "If it is possible…"

And suddenly his hands were grabbing below her buttocks, sliding down to tug at the backs of her thighs, sweeping her up, flinging her up, lifting her up to him, and he bolted her to his waist, and she wrapped her arms, and she wrapped her legs, around him so tight and she felt his eagerness reaching and pressing for her down there where it was so sultry that it ached. _William Murdoch urged for her_ , and it melted and it oozed her every cell, and he walked the two of them into the dining room and he laid her down on the dining room table _, and the hunting look in his eye, the rigidness of his clenched jaw, told her his manly intentions,_ totally twisting and torqueing her womb as she yearned to suck him in, and then William vowed to her, vowed to her that right there and right then, he said it with a flickering twinkle in his eye, "I don't believe it's possible, but I'm certainly going to try…" and he crawled up on top of her and he pushed her down hard into the table, "I'm going to love you TOO much, Julia. Too hard, too deep, too long, I'm going to love you."

 _Oh… Oh._

The power of his breach soared into her.

And breathlessly she begged her whisper to his ear, "William," the word resounding so deep inside of her that it was at once meaningless and his name and everything and nothing, some sort of mantra, or chant, or incantation that served as a direct conduit to the bare essence of life.

"William please," she called again _pulling him deeper_.

"William," the gushing heat out of her engulfed all around him as he pumped and pounded closer.

"Don't stop, William," _the rise._

"William. Oh, William… Mmm," she gasped as the edges tingled with the stilling pause of the wind ahead of the promise, _it was coming_.

"My God, William," _it was going to be too much… too much to bear._

"William," _it poured over them so utterly deliciously_.

" _William…_ _I love you… I love you… I love you too much."_

Thoroughly melted and exhausted, William held her in his arms and he kissed, and he kissed, and he shushed her, as Julia wept with the beauty and the fear and the whirl of it all having overwhelmed her. She turned to find his skin, his ear, his cheek, to kiss him back, and the taste of it seeped into her, her tongue, her kisses finding a warm, salty, wetness on his skin, and she marveled with it, for William, too, had felt it, felt it to the point of tears, the force of their love was unbearable, wholly unbearable, and there was nothing they could do but give in to it, and to lie there miniscule and helpless in the world and be grateful for it, together under the heavens, thanking their lucky, lucky stars.

)) ((

* _ **There was a good chance that this was the night, this night that William tried with all his might to love Julia TOO much – for the math was about right. It was telling too, that it happened on**_ _that_ _ **table, that same table where their beautiful son had been born.**_

 _To the reader, …_

 _ **For a little while, it seemed, James Gillies – this time as the Devil inside – had gotten William's goat. Consider our hero's choices, between the Lady or the Tiger, when confronted with this particular dilemma. William chose HELL, he chose the Tiger, and a more fierce and dangerous Tiger than facing eternity in HELL does not exist for a faithful Catholic man such as William Murdoch. Though you might tell yourself that it was for the Lady that William chose – Lady Justice. We know this Lady is sacred to William, after all, she stands in her robes, blindfolded, holding her scales, on his desk in his office, offering him guidance and a reminder of the importance of the truth. But, you are reminded to look deeper, for you and I will always know – and William's God will always know, the rubber bullet was planned, and thus it was so with justice. But the gun with a REAL bullet in it… IT was fired, and so the animalistic, primal, wild, choice was made. William pulled the trigger believing he was choosing HELL, believing it was worth it. Here, this time, William Murdoch chose the Tiger.**_


	17. 17: The Rabbit Always DiesT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 17: The Rabbit Always Dies_T

 _They were on the dining room table…_

The awareness began to sink in around them both. Flooded, drowned, inundated with their battered ecstasy.

 _Out of breath – Making love on the dining room table – William trying to love Julia TOO much. That's right. That's right…_

"I love you so much, Julia" the words meaningless and small, and huge, for they were all of the words that existed in the world, and they were true, true to the bone.

Rare, exceptional, William was crying too. _Must be the trauma of it all…_ for they had just saved themselves from James Gillies mere hours before. Not uncommon, Julia's crying after their more strongly passionate lovemaking, particularly after one or the other of them had recently faced death. Telling however, that William, too, cried this time. These were not just tears of exertion, of exhaustion, of joyful consumption, everlasting love expressed and felt so deeply that it hurt and that it debilitated. Their lives had been torn, wreaked with fear – fear of losing the other, fear of having so much to lose, of losing their baby, of each of them losing their lifemate, and the unavoidable awareness that one is utterly helpless when it comes to keeping, to holding onto, what is most cherished, so valuable and essential that one feels that they cannot go on without it, such interminable devastation flourished after the horrors that they had just been through at the hands of James Gillies, been through and survived, with each other, and with their son, their everything still here, right here.

)

Upstairs, readying for sleep, Julia felt the flip in her belly upon approaching their bed. Flashbacks flared – _Gillies had their baby in his grasp – gun to his head – "_ _ **Get on the bed**_ _" – William's Truthilizer – wires, terrifying wires – Dynamite! – Set to my heartrate? – ALONE NOW… William's voice downstairs…_

A wave of nausea overtook her, her knees buckling with sickness. The aversion was overpowering. _There was no way she would be able to sleep on that bed, absolutely no way._

 _William was still in the bathroom. He would understand_. Julia began to gather up bedding… and her pillow, for the couch downstairs.

 _She heard William flick off the bathroom light behind her._

She turned to see him _– such a beautiful, beautiful man_ , in the yellow glow of the low light. She saw his eyes drop down to the bedding in her arms, and briefly puzzle. But then, then _HE KNEW…_

William imagined the possibilities, his brain forking off into futures and into pasts. He imagined himself lying with her on their couch downstairs _– every cell of him wanting to be sure she was with him_. Then a memory played, misty and lovely, of the two of them after they had had a big fight, back when they lived in their hotel suite, back when she was pregnant, and then the two of them had made up when she came out to him, _William banished out to the doghouse of sleeping on the sofa_ , and they had both been together on that tiny, tiny sofa that, and she had almost fallen off, but he had caught her, and he had saved her, and he had held her, and he had loved her so much back then. _How could it possibly be that he loved her more now?_ William's mind bubbled up with remembering that he had tried, just now downstairs on their dining room table, to love her too much. And he thought it again now, how _he knew that he was right, that it was not possible,_ and he knew, because he felt it in his chest right this very second, fusing and igniting and blazing with the burning of the pure white-heat of love. The heart astounds in its ability to expand. _No, there would never be too much, and yes, there would always be more_ … His own mind interrupted him, playing for him the predictive sight of Eloise walking in to catch them sleeping together, there on the small couch in the morning, and their jumbled attempts to explain…

 _Suddenly he had a great idea, he was grateful for it_. William stepped close to Julia and took the bedding from her arms. "The bed in the guest room is bigger," he smiled warmly, "And its closer to William Jr.," all he needed to say.

Tears welled in Julia's blue eyes. Her voice was scratchy as she sniffed back the trickle and she answered him, _with a relief so potent in her eyes that its rawness seemed to synchronously both wound and heal him with its touch._ "Yes," she answered him.

William put the bedding down on their bed and took her in his arms. His voice intimately close as it poured over her, "We can purchase a new bed… a bigger one. I'll do it tomorrow."

Julia turned to reach her lips to his ear. Soft, her answer as her a kiss.

) (

The next morning, the morning after Gillies, William stood at his dresser, partially ready for work, wearing at this stage only his tee-shirt and his trousers, picking through choices of cufflinks. Julia, not quite as far along in dressing herself as her husband, silky and smooth in a camisole and bloomers, slowed even more, stuck giving in to her desires to admire him. Sometimes she surprised herself with a preference for those cottony, tight-fitting, warm, tee-shirts of his. William's arms were…. " _Hunky_ ," the word moaned in her head as she imagined _, remembered, the sensual force of the hardness of his arms around her,_ and she giggled to herself remembering his jealousy back in the earliest days of their romance, when she had swooned over the boxer-victim's muscular arms, and William had braved asking her what "women" found attractive in men, fluttering her heart with his question's discomfort and tension. Interesting, what he concluded at the time, "women" secretly most wanting in a man an intelligent thug. Fortunately, in the end, he figured out that that was not quite it, and William Henry Murdoch more than learned what would sweep her off her feet.

"Julia," William's tone along with his eyes focused elsewhere revealed she had been caught, and he would tease her for it.

"Yes William," she answered quickly, thinking to avert his having the upper hand with his surprise noticing. She stepped closer, then slipped in, in between him and the dresser – "Snug fit," she giggled. She watched his look, his eyes traveling her face. Breathless, she added, "Just as we like it."

"You are beautiful, Julia," William took one of her, still unrestrained, fiery and rebellious curls in his fingers – starting the touch, igniting the flames inside.

Flirtatiously, she bumped against him with her shy wiggling, and her words slowed as the world around them took to plummeting and spinning, "Why thank you detective," she whispered. Then Julia's hands toured his chest, and William's humid, hungry breathing surged over her. _He was reacting_. She tilted her head, moved her lips…

 _Her luscious, plump lips…_

Closer, she leaned in…

 _Her bosom, through the satiny fabric of her camisole, lusciously mushy, her squishy flesh, pressed warm into his sturdy chest._

And she finally sparked their kiss, releasing the fireworks.

And then all the blood rushed to their feet as lust flooded in and the kiss deepened and the cascade shot downward to flare the _wanting_. And then the tender 'click' of their lips longing to stick together sounded as she broke off the kiss with a rainbowed crystal 'tick.'

"Twice?" he wondered out of breath, so close to her she felt the smile. "It'll make us late," he warned.

"Not very," she pushed.

And he yielded to the primal urge and he kissed her and the kisses deepened, and hands, _his and hers_ , took what they wanted, hearts thumped _, lower places_ throbbed and reached, and readied and grew eager, so torturously eager, and wrung, their appetites wettening, heatening, the push and pull between them compressing and expanding, pumping up the urgency.

 _Mere minutes before_ , the memories firing inside each of their minds _, they had made love, the force booming and turning wild and abandoned as they each had come to accept the fact that the bed they were on in the guest room would squeak and bang abominably, threatening their secrecy._ Hence, Julia joked now with him as she enticed, "It'll be quieter… here," and then she proceeded to kiss and nip and the then vehemently suckle torrentially at his neck.

William's hand had snuck down into her bloomers and he moaned upon the discovery… _Oh, she was dripping with arousal_ , and his body sent every drop of his hot male blood right to his groin.

"William," her voice in his ear at the same time as he felt the cold, now on the raw flesh she had just released on his neck, "Please William…"

William's brain reminded him, _"Close the door…"_

Too late, William Jr. ran in, his stuffed rabbit Blanco in tow. The toddler's eyes growing wide with puzzlement and fascination as he halted, and the words he'd planned in his head… before seeing his parents… _**wrestling – sort of?**_ – left his mouth arriving somehow ahead of him, "Mommy – NO "little play b'fore bekfest…" the two-year-old's attempt at using his nanny's own intolerable words to explain what was so objectionable. His statement, in typical two-year-old fashion, was followed by a fastidious stomp of his foot accented by an even more fastidious, "NO! No!"

His parents stopped their game, his father saying something under his breath. His mother quickly attended to him. "Little One, you always play for a while before all us slow poke adults are ready to eat, hmm?"

Claire-Marie's eyes met Julia's, then William's, mixing the room with compassion, and frustration, and a bit of discomfort, for the nanny detected what had been interrupted, all overpowered now by a good dose of worry. All of them knew the threat of a tantrum, a toddler meltdown, was beginning to crack through the eggshell.

William stepped closer to his wife and young son and asked, his eyes firm to Julia's, holding with that secret connection, telling her he meant more than what he said, "Where was he… when you got here?" Keeping his eyes looking into hers, William squatted down to William Jr.

Julia knew exactly what William was thinking _– like her not wanting to sleep in the same bed, their son would be avoiding the place where James Gillies had frightened him so terribly._ "In here," she answered, "Just him and, and um …," she nodded slowly and swallowed, "everyone else was gone."

 _So Gillies HAD William Jr. up here, but he must have first GOTTEN him… William Jr. was reacting to the playroom downstairs because of the frightening memories associated with it._

Both parents glanced at Claire-Marie. _The nanny did not seem to be putting it all together as quickly as they were. But, William and Julia understood that their child's aversive reaction to the playroom signified that THAT was the place where the dreadful encounter had happened, William Jr.'s memories were traumatizing him, memories envisioned by his parents now, of Gillies seizing and catching him there, getting him, terrifying him, downstairs, somehow all alone, down in the playroom, before the tiny child was eased of some of the terror with an injection of heroine to quiet him._

Julia knelt down next to William and in front of their son. After giving her husband a quick, subtle nod, she reached over to take one of Blanco's long, fuzzy ears in her fingers.

" _Wise,_ " William thought, " _she would talk to the rabbit_ ," he knew, admiring this woman, grateful for this woman, more than words would ever be able to say.

"Blanco?" Julia stroked the little toy clutched tight in her son's arm, "Mommy and Daddy know the playroom is safe now. And it's one of your favorite places to play. It has your blocks and your train, and your friend, Dinosaur, Dinosaur is waiting in his toybox wanting so much to have his little boy and his rabbit friend to play with him… Besides," her voice lifted and lilted, becoming cheery, "Mommy and Daddy want to have a little play time today before breakfast too. Don't we William…?"

William Stood and reached for William Jr.'s hand. "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you…" he gleamed. Glancing down into William Jr.'s eyes, caught by how big, how brown, _how much like his and like his mother's too they were,_ and then William lifted his eyebrows high to show his own childlike glee, and he said, "The big battery for the train came in the post. We can hook it up, so the train can go and go and go…"

Julia asked Blanco, "Wouldn't you like that?!"

"Yes Mommy," William Jr. smiled answering his rabbit's question, and the room took a deep breath of relief…

And in her head, Julia had a flash of remembering being _hooked up to William's Truthilizer and Gillies' bomb_ , and her mind then seeing _her little, beautiful little, boy, when she had thought he was dead – shot down in the foyer right in front of William,_ and she had imagined _her precious Little One there in the room with her,_ and she had imagined _him looking up at her,_ _ **just like that – just like he had done just now**_ _, and saying exactly those same innocent little words… "Yes Mommy,"_ before she had imagined _seeing him run away,_ and she had thought that _she would never see him again._ Julia sighed with the heaviness of her thoughts. _They had lived through horrors. There would be repercussions_. Some pleasant _, like the way she and William clung to each other with intensified passion, so much more keenly cherishing having each other in the wake of the real threat of losing each other,_ others repercussions being outright shattering _, like encountering skin-crawling dread with everyday things you don't expect to throw you, like simply getting into bed, or going down into your own playroom to 'have a little play before breakfast.'_

Julia put on a robe, and all three adults went down into the playroom to play with William Jr. and his toy rabbit for a little while before breakfast. It was much easier, they all knew it, to confront your demons when you weren't all alone with them.

William tried to tell himself, _"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."_ And on one level, he knew it was true, yet on another _, he doubted_. Such a pain, in opposition to the joy of his son's tiny hand in his, stirred by the profound awareness of its littleness, its frailness, its dependence on him. He realized now that having children was like having a part of yourself OUT in the world, like your arm or your heart, out there in the world where you couldn't keep it safe. It was terrifying.

Claire-Marie suggested that they call Enid and have her come over with her little daughter, Alice, to play… to distract. Enid was glad to oblige, offering her support in any way possible. Julia considered staying home, but she and William agreed it was best to get back to life, as normal, as soon as possible. They would be alright.

 _Needless to say_ , the Murdoch's were a little more than a little late for work that first day back after James Gillies had tried, tried for the third epic time, to mangle their lives. Fortunately, the hanging of James Gillies came quickly – only two days after his being recaptured, the man already convicted and thought to have been executed in the past. Julia had her day, her day of examining her monster's brain in the morgue. _Nothing notable, in the end… just a brain, a brain like all others._

) (

The next day, the day after James Gilles was hung, it snowed. William and Julia agreed to share a cab to work, biking in the snow more of a challenge than William wanted to confront. With the whole world white and muffled, and the sting of the freezing-cold air hitting his lungs, William held his wife's elbow and they made their way down the steps off of the front porch. Once they started down the front path, lovely crunching sounds added to the ambiance, their footsteps packing the snow under their feet, peppering the crisp air with their cadence, her footprints smaller, next to his. Breath-clouds steamed out around them – smoky mist dissipating upward, his mingling with hers, as it rose to the stars, stars that were most assuredly there but unseen, for the overpowering light of the closer star. His mind traveled with associations, _the snowstorm linking to the baby's birth_ , turning onto a new track, springing from remembering the _**place**_ where his son and his wife both survived the _nearly impossible surgery performed by HIM –_ _**their dining room table.**_ _That long, simple, table had seen so much, her father's autopsy_ … And then the memory whipped in – _they had made love there, so passionately, right after the HELL of Gillies_ … Suddenly, his mind, unfathomably splitting, arching down two different paths, one to jump to the track with the memory of the _absolute hell of his agony with the decision of whether or not to pull the trigger, confronting again that, at the time, he believed the revolver was loaded, loaded with lethal lead bullets, and that in pulling the trigger he would kill, and that because of that, if he chose to pull the trigger he was risking that he would go to hell._ Shaking it off in his mind – those thoughts too distressing… _He would, he knew he would, travel down it eventually, but not yet. He needed to be stronger_ , William focused on the other path inside his head, the one that had been less urgent, but present in the background of the disturbing rattling down that first track, this one gentle and lovely, his mind seeing up to _the new bed in their bedroom and their passionate lovemaking, in it, this morning._ It had been that type of powerful, eye-gazing, and therefore soul-touching, love bout that he and Julia could be blessed with. Beyond good, so good it still ached. His own deeper breath drew his attention back to the snow, _so beautiful_. Perfectly, it seemed to clean away all the dirt of the world, to start anew.

) (

Returning back to the morgue from lunch, without William, for he was busy with interviews and working cases, Julia was both surprised, and not surprised, by a sweet-smelling bouquet of striking white roses waiting for her on her desk. She glanced about. _Others would have seen – Rebecca, the orderlies_ … Returning her gaze to his love token, she marveled at her own shortness of breath and her thumping heart. Almost a gasp, _for they were truly beautiful. And, there was a note!..._

 _ **This very morning, a fresh blanket of crystal-white, newly fallen snow…**_

 _ **And I find I long to ask you, to make footprints with me…**_

 _ **In myriads of ways that we can't even yet fathom today.**_

 _ **Julia Ogden, I love you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, to grow old with you…**_

 _ **Until we are merely stardust-ghosts, and even after that, I will yearn, I will strive, to be with you.**_

 _ **If I had not already asked you…**_

 _ **Yet, it seems I still burst with wanting to ask you again.**_

 _ **And so, here, I will,**_

 _ **Julia Ogden, marry me. Marry me, please – today, tomorrow, and every day.**_

 _ **Be my bride. Be my bride again and again and again.**_

 _ **Make footprints with me, my love, until forever, in each and every freshly fallen snow.**_

Such a rush of love flooded over her, _through her_ , so that it felt as if she might implode. _Impossible, not to run to him._ Why… she even forgot to put on her coat. By the time she was halfway to the Stationhouse, however, she had regained her self-control _. She would thank him. She would tell him she loved him, but she would not actually do what she had seen herself do in her mind – dive into his arms and kiss him with complete abandon. No… she would not do that._

)

"George… Henry," Dr. Ogden greeted, looking past them through the windows of William's office. Her heart sunk a little _– he was on the phone, she'd have to wait._

Unsure why, perhaps because he had not seen her since the day of Gillies' attack, George jumped to stand to meet her, Higgins quickly following suit. "Doctor… Good Afternoon Dr. Ogden. The detective… err, your husband is, um, well he's…" All eyes looked to William on the phone. Knowing that Detective Murdoch was talking to a clerk in the housing records department, and that he had already been on the phone for a relatively long time, George surmised aloud, "I don't think he'll be much longer."

Dr. Ogden caught George's eye…

And for a moment George noticed, as sometimes had happened to him before, what a truly _beautiful face Detective Murdoch's wife had, particularly her coloring – those magnetic blue eyes, rosy cheeks and lips, such smooth, glowing skin and those wispy, fiery curls dangling around…_

"I'll go in, I suppose," she told him with a pinch of her lips and a nod.

"Of course, doctor," George responded, gesturing towards the detective's opened door.

Once inside without a knock, his eyes up to hers and his face brightening, she pictured what could have been – _William gasping her name with surprise – "Julia" – barely getting the sound out before she flew into his arms and she kissed him._ A memory fired in her head, of when they had first began courting and _she had burst into his office with a gift for him – a bullet extractor, and she couldn't help herself back then, she had kissed him. My God, he was so irresistibly gorgeous, after her kiss his smile, such a shy and prim and proper man, but undeniably a red-blooded man, and he had wanted more, and my goodness his smile was breathtaking, before he grabbed a hold of her and dove in to kiss her harder, demanding more_ …

Julia sighed, instead, instead she kept her demeanor and she smiled her " _Hello_ " at him, and then she pretended to be interested in the model sailing ship William's father had given him as a boy. She could tell he changed course in his phone conversation towards closing, and she smiled to herself thinking how much she knew that he would prefer to be sharing with her about his roses and his note – about their making footprints together in the white snow and his invitation to renew their lover's vows, certainly much preferred to talking with some clerk, even if the conversation did provide a clue on a case. She moved closer to his desk, like clandestine lovers, they shared a quick glance. _Mmm,_ the chemistry between them torqued her insides so. _Wanting so much to touch HIM_ , she reached out and stroked the hard, cold steely robe of the small "Lady Justice" statue he had on his desk, touching it in his place.

There was anticipation with the pause, the phone conversation ended _but too long_ before the click of the phone being placed back in its cradle…

Through those magnificent eyelashes of his, he looked up at her…

 _Wham, it hit – the gravity-spin between them._

Julia felt her breath leave her, heard it in her own voice, forcing the words to be slower, she confessed, "I… I had to come, William…" And he stood, and the world spun and the ground lifted up underneath her and she wanted him so much she felt dizzy and she gushed out, "I felt like I'd explode."

" _ **EXPLODE**_ _ **"**_

And simultaneously, on a barely unconscious level, Julia's choice of words connected them both back to the memory, the image, _the terror of her having been hooked-up to a bomb of dynamite…_

And Julia added, "Perhaps that was a poor choice of words – "explode," and she tried to lighten it with a giggle.

William pinched his lips together and then wrinkled a corner of his mouth – _his 'admitting it' face_ , and the two of them stood there, aware together, of the profound value of life, of the love of the other, the treasure of it threatening to bring tears of joy. Once again, their love had confronted, and had overcome, unsurmountable and unfathomable adversity.

The awe of it all could be heard in Julia's voice as she said to him, "I do, William…"

And he knew she referred to his proposal in his lovenote. And he remembered suddenly back to _their wedding day, the ground-shaking look of her in that long, white gown and the beauty of her eyes stuck to his through that wedding veil, HER at the end of the aisle… She, it was really happening, she was coming to him, coming to him to be his wife…_

Julia leaned ever so slightly towards him and told, "I did that day, and 'I do' today, and 'I do' tomorrow and 'I do' every day…"

 _Such a whirlwind as William surprised her, surprised himself._

So quickly and so definitively, he stepped forward to her, reached for her, grabbed a hold of her short, feminine, tie, taking it in his grasp. Stunning, the shift all around as he tugged her to him, trapping his hand, engulfing _her tie_ within his fingers, squashed between the plush, pillowy softness of her bosoms. Shattering and spinning, the passion in his kiss – a kiss that was long, and deep, and moved, and found a primal rhythm within them…

And one of his strong arms wrapped around her…

And then his hand, his hand so big and hungry…

Breaths so heavy and wild they surged out humid and hot… _for he dared to do it._

And William's hand explored, traveled, taking up, soaking in, the inward and outward curves of her hips, her waist…

)

Higgins' eyes bulged out of his head, and he stretched up to better see past George and through the windows into Detective Murdoch's office.

 _It was a wonder that those windows didn't steam up…_

George turned to see, becoming utterly enthralled. His voice misty with the romance of it, he noted, "Dr. Ogden is a passionate woman."

"No, George," Higgins corrected, "It was the detective," he whispered excitedly.

"Really," George replied with a guilty pleasure.

)

William released her and said, teasing her for years of fascination with the particular item on him, "I see the appeal of a tie…" glorying in her giggle.

"So uncharacteristically delightful, detective," she wiggled, flirting with him. Julia supposed to herself, that _her ever so buttoned-up husband, TOO, must still find himself reeling from their wonderful lovemaking entwinement this morning._

Julia brought them both back down to Earth, changing the subject to the more mundane. She stepped back, then took a seat on a stool at his worktable. She asked, "Did you get any lunch?"

)

Not much later, George knocked on the detective's still-opened door. Oddly, he seemed to reach from quite far back to reach to the glass of the door, his knuckles tapping against the letters forming William's name.

"It is opened, Constable," William said with an impatience stirred by his confusion with the strangeness, the unfamiliar formalness, of George's interruption.

George stepped in, his fingers fidgeting around a piece of paper he had scribbled on that was dampening within the sweat of his hand, all the while his eyes seemingly fascinated with the ceiling. "The records clerk called back, sir," he said.

Figuring out the reason that George was acting so strangely, _at the same time that she remembered it happening that very first time just after she and William had been caught kissing in his office,_ Julia's brain hollered at her in her head, prompting her to gasp and draw the attention of both men. The thought blared, " _They saw us!"_ and at the tail of that thought came the sudden worry for William, for Julia Ogden knew William Henry Murdoch well, and she knew he would most assuredly be embarrassed at having been observed by his men while being so… sexual, so passionate.

"We are married, George," she defended, edging towards scolding the poor nerve-wrecked constable.

With that, the cause of George's perplexing behavior suddenly dawned on William, and he squirmed.

Seeing William's discomfort charged Julia further, jolting her into anger and, unfortunately, she snapped at George, quipping, "Really…" with a snort, "There's no need to be so judgmental."

And now it was George who squirmed.

William made an effort at rescue, at distraction. "What have you George?" he asked, a bit too loudly.

"Sir!" George answered him, awkwardly, also too loud…

 _It was almost comical watching these two men_ …

"Uh… sir," George corrected his volume, "The clerk found the address you were looking for… err, sir." He handed the, now-wrinkled and soggy, paper to the detective, and then nodded, and then glanced uncomfortably at the doctor, and then – gone.

)

On her way out, Julia stopped at George's desk, grateful he was alone to allow discretion. "George… I just wanted to say that I am sorry for snapping at you, um… earlier," her beautiful blue eyes holding to his, querying into him at a deeper level to read whether or not he understood.

"No need, doctor," George hurried to relieve her.

"I, um, well, I have no good excuse… Just…" she stumbled, _and unexpectedly_ , her eyes pooled.

George's heart exploded with the burn of his compassion for her, and he knew for certain that James Gillies' evil had taken its toll.

And she saw the depth of George's caring, and it caused her to soften even more.

He struggled with whether or not to say what he was thinking, that _she had just been through so much, almost killed in such a horrid way, almost lost her baby, her husband – her soulmate, in such horrid, horrid ways, not more than three or four days ago, all this horror…_

"I was embarrassed, I guess," she offered. She grew bolder and added, "And your actions… well, I felt you were being critical and disapproving, I suppose…"

Not particularly good at masking his feelings, and tending to border on being blunt, George imparted, "Doctor, I must admit to you, that I was thrilled, overjoyed truthfully… Err, I, well I became filled with a kind of adolescent excitement, you see, to see such a man as the detective… You, uh, you must know how much I admire him, doctor, and uh, uh… err, to see him so happy, to yield to his… urges, and I know that he is only able to do such a thing, um, uh, well, solely because of you… because of you in his life, doctor. And I want you to know, I was not criticizing," he rambled.

She smiled. "It was quite something, wasn't it?" she tilted closer to him and confided, wrapping his elbow briefly in hers, and giving it a playful squeeze.

) (

 **William knew he was sleeping, at least at first, trapped and descending into that eerie dual existence, disturbingly odd, dreaming that he was asleep in their new bed next to her, him on his side facing away from Julia, facing the bedroom wall, but SEEING himself there, and at the same time, BEING himself there. He dreamed he was naked, and yet he also knew that he was naked in real-life –** _ **they had made love.**_ **He was too hot, dripping with sweat… the sticky and slippery liquid all over him. Terror with the thought –** _ **maybe it's blood!?**_ **And there had been…** _ **Impossible, impossible here in their house**_ **– there had been flames. Such a panic hit –** _ **was the house on fire!? No! No**_ **, he answered himself,** _ **there were caves, I was in caves with flames and incessant moaning, steam and stink, in dark, damp caves, and chains rattling, somewhere close by, very, very, very, close by.**_ **The very marrow of his bones drove him to** _ **rush towards that rattling, metal sound, holding his breath to discern which way to go**_ **in the labyrinth. Suddenly startled by Gillies taunting, laughing his smug way, echoing off the stony claustrophobic cavern walls, unseen, but heard, so loudly it hurt into his brain, "Oh William, you cannot be allowed to choose any other path but pulling the trigger. YOU MUST COME WITH ME TO HELL. I will not go without knowing YOU WILL EVENTUALLY BE MINE – NOT HERS." Devastating the split-second that** _ **he knew he had done it, William knew where he was**_ **, so that his lungs filled with the burning sting of Gillies' noxious carbon-monoxide gas all over again. He must have –** _ **Oh My God – I DID! I pulled the trigger… Gillies' loaded REVOLVER…!**_

 _ **It was just a dream – not real. Thank God, not real…**_ **He'd woken, drenched, winded, exhausted, terrified, when –** _ **it moved!**_ **HE NOTICED IT IN THE CORNER HUDDLED NEXT TO HIS NIGHT-TABLE, WRAPPED IN BURLAP. Burlap, the smell, the coarse feel of the brown, unraveling, yarny, weave against the naked skin – he had remembered, in the dream, re-felt it all over again, himself being hung-up on the meathook, naked and wrapped in scratchy burlap, in agony in the stench and the blackness of the pig-slaughtering building of the meatpacking plant, nothing to do but bear it and prepare to die… Strange, but somehow** _ **he knew it was not HIM, wriggling and struggling, inside the burlap in the corner**_ **of their bedroom, somehow, there in the caves of Hell,** _ **and a part of him knew who was in the sa**_ **ck, but in the dream he stared so intently, discerning the shape,** _ **denying the gorgeousness of the sweeping curves of the body**_ **huddled inside of there, the body chained in the burlap sack, with him and with James Gillies in Hell, and he already knew, but also he didn't,** _ **that it was Julia.**_ **His mind whispered it,** _ **praying with all his might that it wasn't true.**_

" **Julia…?"**

And that tiny, tiny, breathless whisper woke him…

And William knew then that it was ALL a dream. He _WAS_ awake now, in their bed, naked and sweaty next to Julia. _No caves, no Hell, no Gillies, no body wrapped in burlap in the bedroom corner_. Truly all just a bad dream. A forced deep breath, his mouth grimaced with the bad taste of the lingering of it, skin-crawling disgust, revulsion, sickening, spinning nausea hit. " _It'll pass. It'll pass,"_ he promised himself with the mantra so that he could withstand it, _wait it out, get to the other side._

Another deep breath, trickling relief, _better now._ Another, _it's a bit better. Julia's still asleep_.

"Whew…"

His exhale was audible in the dim shadows, solidifying where he was. Another wave of it crashed back in, his face curled and wrenched again remembering it. At that moment, the chill touched his wet skin, _sheets soaked. "I'll get up. Downstairs… hot chocolate. Maybe she'll come…"_

)

He had made two cups. She had not come. The pot slowly cooled over on the stove with the extra hot chocolate waiting, its steam, done now. William sat in his chair, around the kitchen table from hers, alone. He nursed himself, soothed himself, with the warm sweet, creamy liquid down his throat, the comforting warm feel of the smooth ceramic of the cup within his fingers. He talked with himself, advising he chase after the wispy, disappearing memories of the dream, despite the aversion. " _Face the demons_ ," he coached himself, finding an inner chuckle at the pun and the irony of his own advice. A big sigh escaped as he re-said it in his head, " _Demons… That they were_ ," he thought with an 'admitting -it' face wrinkle.

 _The nightmare made perfect sense, in that laws-of-physics-defying way of dreams. He had put-off dealing with his guilt, his fear, his shock and disappointment and loathing of himself for pulling that trigger, for choosing to kill James Gillies. He had told himself it could wait until he could speak with Father Clements, push it down until Sunday…_

His brain gave him the worst of it then – the body in the burlap sack in the corner of the bedroom. There was no denying it, it was Julia. He had dreamed that she was in Hell with him, and with Gillies. His beautiful, beautiful Julia damned to Hell, and William felt such pain, for he knew, then, that he had a hope, somehow, despite what he knew, what God knew, he had done. He hoped he would not be damned. And the hurt crippled and constricted, for it meant that JULIA WOULD BE ALONE! Tears filled William's eyes with the thought. And then he remembered, stunning that with it there was a strange but undeniable relief, HE had wanted Julia to have an abortion – HIM! He had wanted her to commit that same sin he had condemned her for all those years ago – to kill an unborn baby. He had actually fought with her, begged her, to do it – for he couldn't bear the thought of her dying in childbirth, which she almost did…

A deep breath, trying to cope. _My, how he had changed_. " _A faithful, good, Catholic man_ ," he scorned himself. _He wondered if he'd feel ashamed in the eyes of his mother_. That particular sin, Julia's the first one, his fighting for it, the second one, neither of those could he ever confess to. The burden to be borne alone. He would protect Julia from the law. He accepted that he had no choice. Worse now, he had come to make the same decision, and he thought of the wonder of William Jr., and he thought of how, if Julia had listened to him, that beautiful boy would never have existed, and it hurt too much, too much. He had to stop.

Take a sip. Breathe. Think of something else.

The image was unexpected. A memory, he realized, digging deeper. He had seen it when he was a ranchhand repairing fences. An old, huge, craggily tree had grown right around the fence post, and the wire, now wholly inside the burly trunk, the tree only showing a bulge in its bark where the fence was inside of it. The trauma of the fence's intrusion had been accepted, incorporated, grown around. It had hurt the tree. It had affected the tree, but it was part of that tree now. It could not be removed, there was no way it could be taken out of that tree, not without killing the tree. And William clamped his lips as he reached the lesson of it. Bad things that happen to you become a part of you. They change you, but you cope if you can survive it. And you build everything after that on top of that wound, that scar…

Out of the corner of his eye, her footsteps, barefeet… " _Her feet'll be cold,"_ he told himself, already knowing that Julia was coming. The warmth in his chest upon knowing she was there rivaled, no – it creamed, the hot chocolate.

"Bad dream?" she asked, stepping in with a soft patter on the kitchen floor.

" _At least she had her robe_ ," he thought. He started to stand, but she stopped him.

"I'll get it," she said.

It felt good to share with her. She had experienced similar strugglings. She had killed that serial killer, posing as Detective Scanlon, but that was so clearly self-defense. And William still remembered how dizzyingly grateful he had been, he still was, for Julia's keen instincts, her unique knowledge of the anatomy. He had killed before. He shot the Blackhand man, but that was instinctual too. It happened so fast, and he did it to save Anna. To his memory, he never made a choice. The bang of the gun, the smell of the burnt gunpowder bitter in against the roof of his mouth announced the decision he had made, even to him. There was a profound difference with this _almost_ killing, and he knew it down in his bones. His fingers itched, ached, with remembering searching for the button to release the small gun up his sleeve. Similar to the pang, the twinge, the dull pain, when he remembered his hand on the trigger of Gillies' revolver, so sure pulling the trigger would blast the bullet into the man, would end the villain's life, end the monster's ability to torture… It was different.

Julia held his hand, and he felt her fingers glide over his wedding ring, and she reassured him it was a form of self-defense, that his child, his wife, very much parts of himself – she had argued, were in undeniable danger. He was good man, down to his core, and a strong man. He had saved them, in the best way he could.

William felt better. Sunday mass… he could put it aside until then, knowing he would confront it with his God, with his God, the deepest secrets about the two abortions. He felt a lightening of the load on his soul, he had hope, even for Julia.

) (

Weeks had passed. It took a while, but William and Julia, and it turns out their little son William Jr. too, healed, and life moved on after what they had been through with Gillies. At first, the press had exploded with the story of the return of James Gillies – the headlines brandished the details of the villain's ghoulish use of Mr. Fowler and his torturing of the Murdoch's, his horrendous use of the Murdoch's only child's life as the lure, as the means of hurting his nemesis – Detective Murdoch, the detective's child and his wife put at risk, traumatized. The papers had also touted the detective's final, and heroic, capture of the evil James Gillies, the demon's hanging the ultimate end to the highly sought-after tale… and with it all the Murdoch's had once again been idolized – 'Toronto's Favorite Couple' glittering and glamorous in the spotlight once more. But, there had been a cost. Father Clements had finally gotten William and Julia an interview with a Catholic orphanage to adopt a baby girl. The news, though, frightened the board members off. The Murdoch's interview was cancelled. They were not seen as fit parents, there was too much risk to a child of theirs. Worse, that seemed to set the ball in motion, and the press returned to its witch-hunt like attacks on Julia.

It was in that environment that this particular day brought it all to a head. The newspapers insisted on making a connection between the big story of the day – the anniversary of the day that the abortion doctor, Dr. Restell, had been found guilty of murder for the abortions he had committed, and the papers were determined to link that story to Julia, and also to her Catholic husband, for their suspected use of contraception. Every single one of the newspapers included some connection to Julia somewhere in the story.

)

Sitting at his desk reading the third paper of the day, William rubbed his brow. This one, the Herald, battered Julia for being arrested years ago for teaching women about contraceptives, likening her crimes to those of the condemned Dr. Restell. He remembered back then, _Ana had been back in his life again. Julia down in the cells, married to Darcy. So stunning, so breathtakingly beautiful,_ and he remembered _knowing the second he saw her there that he had been wrong about thinking he was over her, feeling the unbearable pain of the loss of her again in his heart…_

This article went on to attack him, but not like the others, which accused him of going against his Catholic faith, and the law, by using contraceptives with his wife, and then having the gall to try to adopt a child, but instead it complained about his NOT catching the escaped Restell. William sighed. It didn't seem to matter that technically the Don River Jail, from which Restell had escaped, was not within his direct jurisdiction – for it was continuously pointed out that their awful and morbid Body Farm was near the prison, and somehow that was seen to make HIM responsible for the foiled attempts to find the escapee. And that was bringing the focus back onto their Body Farm again, and it was all feeling very heavy.

It appeared again, William's brain had been flaring it up at him all day, that same image, over and over again. This time, he asked himself, why – _why the image of the fencepost inside the tree trunk – why now?_

" _Start at beginning,"_ his own voice, deeply melded with those of Julia and his mother and Father Keegan, guided inside his head. He remembered back to the day he had first come upon the tree, far off, alone, just him and his horse in some pasture in the sun and the breeze. William Murdoch considered himself much of an expert of trees, even then he had had much experience as lumberjack, after all, but he had never seen something such as this. It had impressed him, the way the fence seemed to just disappear inside of the tree and then come out of the other side, only a few ugly and deformed bumps observable in the tree bark revealing the truth of the tree's life-altering encounter with the unyielding fence post. Then he remembered the other, more recent, time that the image of the tree had come to mind. First, he saw himself sitting at their kitchen table, hot chocolate, damp soggy pajamas, and then he remembered the nightmare, the body in the burlap sack in the corner… in Hell.

That was the moment that William fully remembered it, it slamming hard with a bang hurting his head, prompting him to rub his brow. _**He had thought it then!**_ Amazing – devastating – debilitating, that truth. _**He had thought it at that very moment, the moment James Gillies had said it,**_ so awful, _Gillies wanted him to be_ _ **HIS**_ _in Hell, not_ _ **HERS**_ , and William remembered that he had thought sarcastically, that _Gillies would be foiled in the end, because Julia would be there… Julia would be there, because she had had an abortion._ It made so much sense, now, his nightmare. The sting of his threatening tears dried in in his eyes with his burning fear searing away all the water. And then the image came again, soothing – of the tree. _Odd, a sweet smell of cocoa on the imaginary warm whisper of the breeze, a soft ruffle in his mind – Julia's curl._ There was hope with the image, with the survival, the magic, the strength of the suffering, of the tree. That tree, with the fence post inside of it, lumpy and deformed, and William knew that horrible, unspeakable things must be accepted, can't be denied, and you grow around them, they deform you, but still you must grow, and it must be there forever after – the pain, the disgust becomes a part of you, but you go on, changed. He was like that tree – Julia was like that tree. They had survived, and they were still here, and they were rare and remarkable and together and still strong. He did not know why, but he was sure of it, there was hope.

) (

They coped as another week went by. Another snow came, it reminded of the footprints and the promise. William and Julia had fallen asleep, in their bed that no longer felt new, naked after having had made love, tucked under the blankets. It was cozy, winter battering outside. As Julia cuddled backwards deeper into William's sleeping body, she realized it was freezing **inside** their house as well. Her eyes bolted opened – _**the baby! The baby was sleeping in the other room.**_

She roused her husband, her lover, her partner, her soulmate. William said, already up, alerted, that he hoped it was something easy to fix on the boiler. He had been half into his pajamas, just the bottoms, before Julia left the room to get the baby. William put on his slippers in an awkward, hopping, already-going, sort of motion, and headed down to the basement to do the repairs. He caught himself replaying the sight of his wife, _bare, beautiful_ , as he had turned on his lamp and the low, yellow glow had touched her skin. _Breasts, my she was gorgeous_ … "Brrr," his brain changed the subject with his own bare chest registering the cold – _it was freezing_.

Julia was certain her little baby boy was too cold, despite the fact that he remained groggy as she fussed with his blankets. Softly, she scooped him up into her arms, resting the tiny, floppy child against her moldable bare skin. Love overtook her. _My God, how she loved this boy, was so grateful to the stars, to the Universe, for this little boy_ …

)

When William returned, boiler repaired, he found that Julia was in bed, his toddler-son nestled in her arms, the boy's black curls, popping out from their nook where his face was nuzzled down into Julia's bosom. The boy's curls seemed to dance and mingle with her blonder ones draped here and there over her shoulders and down over the little nest she had curled the boy into. The sight stole his breath away, making him clamp his lips tight as he absorbed and withstood the wave of the overwhelming joy surging through him. A part of his brain, the more logical side, wondered if the child could breathe properly, and then he remembered the huge struggle they had had in the past to finally get the baby comfortable with sleeping in his own room, and that this… _truly lovely…_ situation, this decision to let the toddler sleep with them, would likely take them back to those more challenging bedtimes all over again.

With a sigh, _a warm sigh_ , filled with both acceptance and contentment, William turned out his lamp, lifted the covers, and slipped into bed to join his family, to mold his body around theirs… to reach his arms around them both, and to feel those same black and blond curls, in the dark, tickle and brush and squash against his own bare chest. The slow deep rhythm of the harmonious breaths, like the waves of the ocean rolling up on the shore, so soothing, bringing on delightful rocking, oozy, sensations. It was notably warmer, and for the moment perfect, and sleep came over him quickly.

)

William had felt, sensed it from just under the smooth, nearly transparent, but blurry and ripply edge of consciousness, Julia's movements, and now his eyes detected sunlight through his eyelids. It was morning, Julia was next to him. Listening, he heard her, so gently she was cuddling and kissing. _Odd, as he realized that her attentions were not focused on him?_ " _The baby_ ," he told himself. The realization flooded him with emotions, warm and wonderful.

He turned onto his side, slipped closer to her. She was turned away from him, loving her baby, but she felt his touch.

"Look at our baby, William," she whispered to him.

The feeling of her skin under his rocketed him somehow, with its silkiness, stirring the manliness within him. As his face settled into the back of her neck, and he tenderly pushed some of her curls aside to take in her scent, an unruly moan glided out of him, softly rumbling the morning air. Such conflicts within, for he wanted to make love to her, and he wanted to share the cherishing of their baby with her too. His hand rode up the sloping curve of her broad hips, then down the steep hill to her waist, marveling at the rounded, sweeping waves of her body, particularly when she lay in this position.

She felt it too, the twitch, the lustful pressure of desire for him building in her core. And he detected her response, in her breathing, in the subtle leaning of her body backwards into him.

His hand continued its travels, riding each ridge of her ribs as he moved upward, approaching... In his hand, heaven, the bulging heaviness of creamy flesh cupped in his fingers. The quietest moan with his rhythmical molding building the anticipation. Kisses, at her neck, loud breaths into her ear.

"William," she fought the falling, "the baby."

His dalliances on her flesh ceased as he accepted the need to hold back his urges. She felt him shift behind her, lifting himself up on an elbow to peer over her and take in the astounding view of their amazing child sleeping there on the other side of her.

 _The man could be so tender_ , she noted, as she watched his fingers gently slip into the baby's dark curls, trace that tiny, perfect little ear, and then cup his head.

"He is magnificent," William whispered the intimate truth between them.

For a short time, they delighted in him.

William broke the spell, saying what she already knew. "If he wakes up in his mother's arms like this, he will never…" _William wondered at his own reaction momentarily, as if_ HE _were that tiny baby, so lucky, so loved,_ "Tasting such magic will be irresistible. He won't want to sleep alone… ever again."

" _Yes, likely true,_ " she thought. Her sigh told him she knew he was right.

"I'll take him back," William offered, his body already moving behind her. He crawled out of his side of the bed, came around to her side to pick up the baby. "Come here you wee one," he said warmly to the sleeping boy as he slipped his arms under the toddler and lifted him, tucking the baby boy to rest against his own naked chest. The slightest stirring in the child immediately subsided. William leaned down and kissed his son's head as he carried him to his room. "You're my Little Man, hmm? You had such a nice dream, sleeping with your Mommy and Daddy?" he asked the baby.

Julia found her want for her husband only growing stronger while she waited for his return. Her mind flashed the images of what could soon happen between them, seeing herself under him, him thrusting forcefully, such a robust, pounding, rhythm. Her womb tweaked with the sparks of the longing. Still lying on her side, naked, her back turned to him, she heard him return, close the door, approach. His pause at the edge of the bed, _too long_. " _He's taking off his pajama bottoms_!" her brain yelled it in her head and her insides torqued.

The mattress dropped under his weight as he climbed under the covers and came to her.

"William Henry Murdoch," she teased him deliciously, "Where are your pants?" she asked as his skin contacted hers, erupted hers. " _Oh God, this was going to be good_ ," her breathless inner voice promised, " _very, very good…"_

"I didn't think I needed any," came his raspy reply in her ear…

The cadence, the words, reminiscent of that first time so many years ago, back then the question posed to him, on those picnic blankets on the twilighted summer grass of the park, had been about prophylactics. How different things might have been if he had had a condom with him that first night, if he had brought one along with the bottle of absinthe, and the sugar cubes, and the glasses. Of course, if he had, then he would NOT have been William Murdoch, and if he were not this rare, and wondrous, and modest, and buttoned-up William Murdoch she had come to adore, come to love more than life itself, then they never would have ended up here in this wonderful bed together as man and wife, seeming, at least at this very moment, to be living happily ever after.

) (

February came, and it seemed that crime had become frozen still with all the rest of the world. William took advantage of the lull to re-examine the clues in his one unsolved case from last year – the Body Dumper case. All the clues still chalked out on his drawing board downstairs in his workroom, he considered asking Julia to come down, after her shower, and look it over with him. They had asked Claire-Marie to stay on until suppertime to allow Julia to freshen up – _the morgue odor had been particularly strong today_ , he remembered. Stationhouse #1's Inspector McWorthy had sent her a body to autopsy, the dead man found frozen solid in amongst a bunch of pigs in a pigpen. It had reeked terribly once it had defrosted. " _Sometimes her chosen profession DID stand out as… unconventional, to say the very least_ ," he sighed to himself, thinking of the dogged attacks from the newspapers…

William's eyes, his mind, turned back to the drawing board, changing the subject, " _She always had a way of seeing something…_ " he thought, something that he hadn't, or at least she sparked his brain to consider things in a way that he hadn't seen them on his own. " _She was right – they made a good team,"_ he nodded to himself, clamping is lips together. His eyes stuck on the drawing of the oddly-shaped, large bruise that had been on the victim's thigh, cleverly revealed by his ultra-violet light photography. It was an older injury, undetectable with the naked eye. The man had survived the trauma. William had always figured it was from some sort of machine… " _It was so symmetrical_ ," a circle surrounded by four other near circles… " _But maybe… well,"_ the thought haunted a little, " _Nature has a symmetry to it too…"_

 _ **Upstairs, crying… wailing – the baby!**_

William dashed so fast he wouldn't remember his feet touching the ground.

Him up the stairs…

Julia down the stairs…

 _From the living room…_

 _Julia already showered – dressed._

 _Claire-Marie had the boy._

 _On the floor, rocking him…_

Next to the coffee table.

Julia swooped in so fast, mama bear to her cub. Baby in her arms, her bosom, the boy already quieter…

William saw the child's face, _so red_ , streaked with tears. He cuddled the boy's head, rubbed at his shoulder.

Julia's voice, like in a dream, astoundingly loving, warm, reassuring…

"You're alright…" closer to the boy's little ear, "Shhh, Little One, you're alright. Shhh, breathe baby, breathe…" soft, a kiss.

 _Whew,_ he was calming.

Eloise appeared at the living room entrance. The housekeeper shared a knowing look with the detective, then a nod. She went back to the kitchen.

William reached a hand down to Claire-Marie, helping her up from the floor.

"He hit his head," the nanny touched her own head at the hairline of her forehead showing the location, "On the corner… the corner there," Claire-Marie pointed to the squared-off, pointy edge of the coffee table, "On the corner of the coffee table," she hurried to explain.

 _BOOM, it was as if the earth shifted underneath their feet._

Julia suddenly raged at the nanny, hugging her boy tighter, "He shouldn't be running around in here in the first place! You shouldn't have let him! You let him run – run all around…" Julia's arm, her eyes, flapped about to exaggerate the extent, "all throughout the whole house…" fierce, her livid look was back piercing into Claire-Marie, "Why did we even bother making him a playroom!? What were you thinking? Honestly, I don't think you think at all…"

"Julia," William's shock at her outburst took the air of a reprimand. He quickly corrected his tone, lowered his voice seeking to sound reasonable, "Babies get hurt sometimes…"

The glare he received cut his throat shut.

 _The silence hung._

William held her eye, neither looking away, her furious – _fuming_ , him confused – _deer in the trainlights_.

Julia huffed and then shifted, moving her little William Jr. away from her chest to examine the wound at the top of his forehead. She took a deep breath and her fiery eyes cooled as she lifted one of the toddler's curls to the side to see the huge, egg-sized lump in the light.

 _No blood_ , it seemed everyone breathed with relief.

Julia carefully rubbed her fingers over the bump, able to feel at its center a harder, thin, vertical line, _where the coffee table edge had hit_ , the mark already darkening in color. " _There is a lot of blood-flow to the head – such injuries always swell,_ " her doctor brain tried to handle the fear. Yet, unable to help herself upon seeing her beautiful little baby boy hurt, she found Claire-Marie's terrified face once more. "You are useless here. I will take care of this. You might as well go," she barked at the poor nanny.

William felt Claire-Marie's desperate gaze turn to him, but he lingered his eyes on his wife's face, _working to detect her anger, to decide…_

He turned to Claire-Marie and said, thinking he was the voice of reason, and that the young woman needed some reassurance, "It's alright. We, we will… um…" his eyes darted back to look at Julia and ask her, "He will need some ice?"

Fire with her exhale, she fought to stay in control, "Yes," she snapped. Her attention back to the baby, she comforted, "It will get better, sweetie. It's going to be alright. I promise," and then she tenderly gave the rock-hard lump a motherly kiss.

"Thank you for staying late…" William said to Claire-Marie, _telling himself in his head to ignore his wife's huff in the background._ He reminded, hoping to offer the young nanny a glimmer of security, "You'll be around over the weekend, in case the doctor and I are needed?" he waited for her nod. "Good," the detective's clamped lips and slight bow…

 _She found the man to be so_ _winsome, the noticing made her insides curl_ …

"Monday morning then," he warmly concluded.

"Yes," the simple answer from Claire-Marie. Right before taking her leave, she hesitated, considering whether or not to address Dr. Ogden. Instead, she spoke to William Jr., "Good night Master Murdoch…"

 _And truth be told, if two-year-old, big, beautiful, brown eyes could talk, his eyes said that he still loved her…_

And Claire-Marie's eyes instantly teared up, and she rushed away.

 _Oh, there was no doubt about it, William and Julia were about to have a humungous fight, and they both knew it._

"Be careful, William," Julia warned once they were alone.

"Julia," he steadied, being the sensible, levelheaded one…

"Don't you dare say I'm coddling him too much…" she advised.

And it felt as if her gritted teeth and the rising squeakiness in her throat, along with the tiniest hint of the threat of tears in her pretty blue eyes, all contradicted with each other, anger and helplessness and embarrassment swirling into a sort of powerless, blinding, steam.

It was decided between them then, _not a word spoken_ , to deal with it later. They brought William Jr. into the kitchen, the plan that, there, Julia would treat him.

)

William and Julia had managed to remain civil with each other, keeping their impending argument at bay, at least until after William Jr. had been tucked into bed snuggly to sleep for the night. Prior to that, throughout the passing few hours, William had made a few efforts to appease, all of them failing. Now, with the two of them readying for bed in silence, he found himself working it through in his head, planning to be prepared for the looming… _discussion._

William had noticed that _Julia had been uncommonly touchy lately_ , and he ventured to explore, more consciously now in the wake of Julia's outburst at Claire-Marie, what could be the cause of her moodiness. Planning to start by going back to what may have been the stimulus of her upset, he remembered back to the first time he had noticed it – Julia's prickliness, arriving to a memory of a short exchange between the two of them at the morgue earlier in the week. She had not wanted to do an anaerobic toxin test that he had wanted her to do. They had bantered about it a bit, back and forth. At one point out of the blue, Julia had lost her patience with him, to the degree that she had practically stomped her foot to the floor in challenging him. So, he had backed down, and then she had given a little bit, saying that she was tired, and 'perhaps she needed some rest.' He had tried to settle the disquiet between them, agreeing that that would 'probably be for the best,' and suggesting that he take her home… She had quipped all of a sudden, " _Don't you tell me what's best for me, William!"_ He remembered his surprise at the time, thinking that it wasn't like her to take offense so easily.

Then he thought it! " _Dr. Restell's anniversary of being found guilty – that was not that long ago!"_ he declared the discovery in his head remembering sitting at his desk in his office reading the myriad of newspaper stories about it. The doctor had been sentenced to be hung – _just like Julia had been_ , after the trial for Darcy's murder, but in this trial, Dr. Restell had been found guilty for murder as a result of his performing _abortions – certainly a touchy subject in Julia's case_. And, of course, there were all those awful newspaper stories, once again scapegoating Julia. " _THAT_ ," he figured, " _that was likely the cause of her impatience and grumpiness._ "

But then, the memory popping up to make him hesitate in drawing his conclusions, for there were still more clues to consider, he remembered their making love downstairs on the dining room table. _That had been too long ago to be relevant now,"_ he thought, _"back right after Gillies had terrorized them,"_ one side of his brain argued. " _But there had been a resurgence, lately, of that kind of wild lovemaking. And he_ _ **hadn't**_ _recently almost been killed…"_ he reasoned on in his head, his having had been in recent serious danger and that triggering Julia's resurgent fear of losing him the usual event that stirred up such passionate reactions to their making love. _"As a matter of fact, there were practically no cases at all recently, and their lovemaking was still so remarkably powerful, and afterwards, Julia almost always collapsed into heavy sobbing, a testament to the extreme degrees of her emotions and her physical exertion, of her having had extended her body's sexual efforts to its limit, utter exhaustion completely overwhelming her… It was delicious, but it was… different, lately_ ," the other side of his brain countered.

Another thought added, " _There was that magical night when she brought the baby to sleep with us in our bed, to warm him up,"_ he remembered, Julia breaking one of their rules. The house had gotten freezing cold because the boiler had broken – the boiler that was installed following HIS invention designs… " _She didn't get grumpy about that,"_ he wondered on hindsight. The beautiful sight fired in his mind's eye again, of his wife, Julia Ogden, the love of his life, lying naked in their bed with their baby tucked close. Quickly behind it came the memory of the last real hope they had had of adopting a baby – this time a baby girl, slipping through their fingers. And Julia's longing for another baby was so strong it hurt him to his core to think that they would fail, the Catholic orphanage board members… cancelling their interview because of the news stories about Gillies, reacting to the danger William Jr. had been placed in, the trauma their little baby had suffered, insult to injury that it was talked about in every paper, and the reliability of their parenting put, once again, in doubt, and on public display. William's heart ached, for her, and for himself. _But he was trying to figure out what was bothering Julia_ , he reminded himself. _What did any of this have to do with figuring out what was bothering her?_ Abruptly, as if his brain was having a temper tantrum, it slammed up another memory, another clue, also from earlier this week. Julia had been uncharacteristically brazen about her desire to make love with him in public. She had been demandingly… lusty… in the morgue, her fierceness, his weakness, bringing them treacherously, dangerously, close to making love, right there, IN THE MORGUE, fully aware that someone could walk in at any moment. His groin reacted with a jolt with the luscious memory of it.

 _Really_ , he concluded, frustrated and worried about their imminent discussion, _he didn't know which end was up._

Both of them knowing they would not get into bed together still feeling angry, there would be no more avoiding it. William braved bringing it up. "William Jr.'s head didn't seem to be bothering him much," he breached the subject.

" _William Jr. would be fine_ ," Julia thought to herself. However, her weighty sigh announced she was dissatisfied with his beating around the bush.

Their eyes met.

William saw the flames.

Forward, the only way to get through it, he said, "Julia, I know we have… there have been conflicts, um… we differ on how rough William Jr.'s play should be," he took a deep breath, "On how much risk is…"

Julia interrupted, "Yes, yes, William. And you always win that fight, don't you? Me, overprotective, and always coddling him too much, so that I'll make him into a softie, and you, you the big man, needing to protect your precious son from that, that… shameful plight… You always knowing better, because you're the man."

Jul…" William failed to get a word in…

"That's not what this is about, William!" her voice rose to a squeak, and her chin jutted out that way that always impressed him, sometimes mesmerized him, with this astounding woman's strength.

She almost heard him blink.

 _He needed to pay attention, now._

 _She would lay out the charges against him._

Julia's hands planted firmly on her hips and the look in her eye honed in.

 _Whoa_ , the room edged towards moving, a heart-stopping drop, the start of a slow spin.

Julia accused, "You've never been comfortable having servants. You've admitted as much. And now you stand there…" and Julia leaned in to make her point, " **and you dare to do it right in front of our son's nanny** , you stand there in judgment of me, treating me like I am some sort of arrogant, unappreciative, rich, spoiled **tyrant** … abusing our servants. Claire-Marie is lenient! She's too lenient with him, and this time he got hurt because of it…"

William tilted in now, laying it on the line, "Julia, you know very well that _**I**_ am more 'LENIENT' with him than she was when he got hurt, and you don't speak to ME as you spoke to HER tonight."

Instantly, he regretted it. He had upped the ante. His brain hollered at him to _backpedal, to pull it back from the brink_. "Julia," William's voice lowered, offered. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, trying to yield. "Julia, I felt it unfair that Claire-Marie would be disciplined for doing something that we all very well know _**I**_ do with him all the time… is all."

He sensed her softening. He stepped closer. "And not once, have I ever thought you were a tyrant." Cautiously, he reached out to take one of her curls in his fingers. William moved slowly, steady, confident but attentive, like he had learned to do when trying to recapture a frightened horse. He stepped in closer still, quieter with the intimacy, William tried to be winsome, "Besides, I would argue that a little girl, just as much as a little boy, needs to take risks… physically, Julia…" William's other hand reached up to cherish her face, the back of his hand, his knuckles sliding along the contours of her cheek, her jawline, his other hand, fingers tucking deeper into her hair, "I know of a girl who rode horses, like a man, quite a while before such things were allowed," he tilted his head – the anticipation of a kiss hovered between them, "And who climbed trees…"

 _Tingling dread, every nerve to high alert inside his body_ …

One of Julia's eyebrows lifted up, and her chin jutted defiantly up into the air, and her lips tightened into that familiar and intimidating stubborn, locked, clamp. Her hands shoved into his chest, pushing herself back from him. She had found it inside, what had really infuriated her so much about his coming to Claire-Marie's rescue, and it boiled inside her veins right this very second all over again. The bitterness of it, the distaste of it in her mouth, so unpleasant it made her tone snide as she slowly said, "Don't you try to charm me, mister. Why don't you just admit the REAL reason you stood up for her?" she pushed.

William's hands went wide out to his sides, _lost – he was lost_. "What?" he pleaded.

"You know very well, 'WHAT!" she steamed…

 _Suddenly her peering into him felt as if her were under a microscope, tiny and exposed…_

Sarcasm peppered her words and she spelled it out for him, "Don't tell me, William, you've never noticed she's young and pretty – and the way she looks at you…"

 _Oh, William didn't like the way this was going_ … He needed to put water on this fire right away. "Julia…" But her face locked tight into her disbelief, and he stammered. Worried he would not be able to get her to believe him, he changed tactics midstream, "Julia, YOU noticed that she's young and pretty too. That doesn't mean anything." And unexpectedly, William felt mad. _How dare she accuse him of fancying Claire-Marie_? His anger flared as he defended, "And you know I have never cared about the way ANY women look at me!" he contended. William felt his own teeth gritting hard in his mouth, and he knew he needed to soften or he would lose her, and so he released the grip and he tried, "That is, except you…"

"So typical, William," she goaded, "You just can't help yourself, for all your goody-goody-ness, you still think with your groin." _As far as Julia Ogden was concerned, William Murdoch was dismissed._ _She would not speak another word to him._

Julia began gathering up the bedding.

He was being sent to the couch for the night.

He followed her about for a few seconds, like a little puppy, arms wide, eyes dark with wishing.

He tried, "Julia… Julia, please. You're not… This isn't making sense…"

Pillow, plowed into his chest, his arms curled around it. _The hopelessness was setting in._

"Julia. You're being silly," he argued.

Bam, the blanket added to the pile.

"You know that tomorrow, you're going to regret this…" he tried again…

Wallop, another blanket. Slap, his pajamas to the top of the pile.

William sighed, and his arm twitched with the urge to reach up and rub his brow, limited by being unable to follow through with his arms full of bedding. _Acceptance sunk in, and William was himself feeling so angry now, he figured it was probably for the best_. He marched into the bathroom and shoved the bedding pile precariously into one arm as he gathered up his toothbrush and shaving items and plopped them into a small travel bag.

"Good night," he snapped to the room as he left.

For her part, Julia stood there realizing that he was right. _She was being silly, outright unreasonable, and that infuriated her even more._ A part of her thought, with relief, that she had _**almost**_ said Claire-Marie was just like " _ **the waitress**_ ," and she was so very glad she had not. She had to admit that she had never seen William even look twice at Claire-Marie. " _Funny,_ " she thought to herself as she reached up and rubbed her own brow, " _how his gesture had become hers_."

 _Yes, William was right._ But, there was this pride of hers to deal with now, and it was too nauseating to imagine going down to him to apologize. _He was a big boy. He could take it_. _And besides, maybe he would appreciate what he had, more, after a night on the couch anyway,_ she told herself.

Expecting sleep _not_ to come, after the lamp clicked off into darkness, Julia exhaled and wiggled deeper down into her pillow. _Oh, all right_ , she grumbled to herself in her head, _she would have to apologize to Claire-Marie too._ That final step taken, she fell off to sleep surprisingly quickly.

)

Down on the couch however, William tossed and turned. He had reached a conclusion, and it was not sitting well. _She was pregnant_. _That would explain all of it. He had seen these exact same… symptoms,_ he guessed he would call them, but he knew better than to call them that… to her. _She had had these exact same symptoms when she was pregnant with William Jr._ First, _there was the clinginess_ , she had been very clingy lately, always thinking he would die, or that he would leave her for some reason or another. And there was the _constant being angry with him. She was mad at him if he disagreed with her, and she was mad at him if he didn't_. William _remembered that that was exactly how it felt back then – walking on eggshells_. There was no denying that that was what it was like now… again. But the biggest clue, the one he thought was undeniable, was that _combination of Julia being exponentially amorous_ , always wanting him, in that way – and the more public the better, and that heart-pounding drive to make him love her was constantly _bumping up against her being jealous_. A deep regret landed hard in William's chest, for he had remembered his lustful imaginings back when she was pregnant with William Jr., and _he had been tempted_ , he didn't remember ever _deciding_ to look, _to lust after the other woman_ , " **the waitress** " – still, to this day, he could _not believe_ that he would _do such a thing with Julia sitting right across from him in the restaurant_. His heart ripped apart remembering _how hard she had cried,_ how badly he had hurt her. _She had had every right to be jealous. He had been an idiot_. But, this thing with Claire-Marie – it was completely unfounded. He had reasoned it out in his mind, back the first time she was pregnant, he figured it all came down to a fear, an instinctive and hormonal fear that Julia had, probably most women had, when being with child, a debilitating fear of her being abandoned when she needed him most.

He sighed, flipped over to face the other way on the couch. _Well, at least it felt better knowing what was going on._ But, the problem was, Julia's being pregnant only made him more anxious. After her Cesarean section to save her life and William Jr.'s, there would be even more scarring in her womb. It was that very scarring that would have gotten them back into this mess, for as a result of IT, they did not think they needed contraception. _Clearly_ , he thought to himself, _they had_. But, and this was terrifying to him, so much so that he tossed about two more times before grappling with it, she was at an even greater risk of dying this time, the extra scarring limiting the stretch of the uterus, the baby would come early. It would be harder to sew her back up. He couldn't believe it _– that he would be in this position again_. She needed to have an abortion. The irony of it was unbearable, absolutely unbearable. He didn't think he would sleep a wink.

) (

Surprised that he had ever fallen asleep, William felt himself waking up. Sleep had been a battle, exhaustion had finally won out. _It was Saturday. Relief. No work. House to themselves all weekend._ William worried about Church tomorrow, _if they were still arguing_. _He was on the couch_ , he remembered, reality brightening around him. A profound heaviness sunk into him, the feeling before its cause. The thoughts explained the pain, " _Julia was pregnant. She would have to have an abortion. She would want to try to have the baby. They would disagree. Already somehow, he knew he would lose the argument…"_ The thoughts constricted his ability to breathe, surging nausea. Turn away. He heard noises upstairs. _William Jr. was awake. Julia was too. Footsteps on the stairs._

William Jr. burst into the living room, flung himself onto his father on the couch, certain there would be roughhousing with Daddy. William would not disappoint.

Julia peaked in from the foyer. "I'll make breakfast," she said, sounding cheery.

)

While she stood at the stove, moving eggs and bacon about in the pan, she told him she was sorry, she admitted he was right, it was an over-reaction to yell at Claire-Marie that way. She would apologize the next time she saw her. She wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him where he sat at the kitchen table, the gesture making William smile _._

 _It felt repaired, better_ , and William was about to tell her that he thought she was pregnant, but her body beat him to it.

A tremendous wave of nausea overcame Julia, causing her to retch right there at the stove. She managed to curtail the exodus, but bolted for the downstairs bathroom.

William stood from his seat at the table, said to his young son, who was sitting safely secured in his high chair, "I'll be right back," and moved the pan off of the flames on the stove and rushed after her.

Nothing romantic about it, he reached down and took her hair from her clutched fingers as she heaved into the toilet. He was grateful for modern plumbing.

As soon as she was done, she stood, rinsed her mouth and dried it off.

They looked into each other's eyes, and they both knew. And they both saw it in the other – the problem. Julia was ecstatic, euphoric. William was sickened and terrified. They had been here before. And they both knew, the road would not be easy, whichever way they took.

Julia stepped into his arms and said, "Either way we go William, this won't be easy."

"Well," he said, "We'll be going there together, hmm?" and they hugged each other tight.

) (

Nighttime descended, and William and Julia found themselves nearing bedtime once again. William was sure he did not want to sleep on the couch again tonight, and they were still both sore from their fighting last night. However, it did not feel right to get into bed together with the question of Julia's pregnancy, and the disagreement about her having an abortion, still unresolved. They both knew they needed to be careful not to let it flare up into a full-fledged argument, but there was tension, and they did not agree. The best they had been able to come up with was that they would wait until she could be examined by Dr. Tash and take the test before they made any decisions. Yet, Julia had made it clear that last time he had wanted her to have an abortion and they had decided against it, and NOW, now they were beyond grateful for their having had made that decision. To William, it felt as if she had already won.

William lifted the covers and slipped into bed with her. She settled her head down on his chest. Before he turned off the lamp, he said, seeking a bright side to going through with trying to have the baby, despite his fear, "Perhaps when the world, when all the papers, hear about your pregnancy it will abate all the badgering about our using contraception and the troubles and criticisms with our adopting. We'll be back to being the storybook couple."

She could tell, without being able to see his face, that he had wrinkled up a corner of his mouth, admitting that he was doubtful, _and admitting that he was hurting too_ , she thought.

He reached over and tugged on the string on his lamp that brought the darkness.

She felt his lips nestle down into her hair on the top of her head. She loved the way he slowly smelled her. She wondered if they would make love.

His voice in the dark, "I guess you're right, we might as well wait and see if the rabbit dies."

It was a relief, knowing that they would not fight, at least not tonight.

Julia had an idea, a way to rely on their shared love of learning, and of science, and to use it to repair and bridge the bitterness between them. She would spew amazing scientific facts at him, facts related to the topic at hand, to what William had just said about testing to see if a woman is pregnant with a rabbit. An association suddenly tickled her mind with the memory of floating up into the sky with him in that colorful, magnificent, hot air balloon, him doing just that at the time – spewing scientific facts to strengthen their connection. Julia heard their conversation in her head, William's beautiful, perfect, voice asking her, " _Doctor, are you familiar with the details of the first recorded flight of a hot-air balloon?"_ and her, so sure he would be impressed, rattling off the answer, " _Pilâtre de Rozier from the center of Paris on November 21, 1783."_ It had stolen her breath away when he replied, back then, " _Ah_ ," the deliciously cocky side of William Henry Murdoch becoming revealed, " _That was the first manned flight. Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier launched one two months before that. The passengers were a duck, a sheep, and a rooster,"_ he had gloated. It had been glorious – and _my, she loved this man so_. " _Interesting,"_ she noted to herself, hoping he was not drifting off to sleep yet, " _They had had a huge, relationship-altering argument before he had leapt into that balloon with her back then, too…"_ And somehow, Julia just knew it then as she knew it now, that the wind would take care of them.

Her voice broke the peaceful silence, "Actually William, the rabbit always dies. It's a misconception that the rabbit only dies if the woman is pregnant…"

"Oh…?" he asked.

 _She had his interest._

"A pregnant woman's urine will cause the female rabbit's ovaries to swell, but the rabbit must be sacrificed to examine the ovaries, so…"

And he finished her sentence for her, "So, the rabbit always dies." William pinched his lips together, "Not so good for the rabbit."

"No," she smiled and rolled up to give him a kiss, "No, William, it isn't," she giggled, and then Julia snuggled back down. They would not be making love tonight, they were both thoroughly exhausted, but they were together, and they would be alright…

 _ **The rabbit, however… Not so much.**_

)) ((


	18. 18: Encounter with Saber-Toothed TigerT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 18: Encounter with the Saber-Toothed Tiger_T

In the middle of the night, Julia awoke to find William's side of the bed empty. She pictured him downstairs struggling with his demons – knowing the pressures of this second unexpected pregnancy were taking their toll on him.

In her mind, she saw him standing in his pajamas in front of their stove in the warm kitchen, stirring a pot of hot chocolate for them to sip on together while they talked it through. Wrapping herself up in her robe, and foregoing her slippers… grateful, it was uncommonly mild for a February night, she organized the keynotes of the situation as she headed downstairs to look for him.

They had not been using any means of birth control since William Jr. had been born – " _Isaac had even agreed…"_ she reminded herself, because her Cesarean section, although extraordinarily and eloquently performed by ingenious, _detective_ , husband, had left too much scar tissue in her uterus to render implantation of a fertilized egg possible. Her inability to have another child had saddened her deeply, and eventually, they had turned to adoption. Of course, they realized now, now that the nearly impossible had happened and she was very likely with child once more, that it had been a mistake not to use precautions.

" _It was true,"_ Julia thought with a heavy sigh, after checking in on their beautiful, sleeping, little boy, _that there was notably greater danger_ _to her life now_ with her undergoing this SECOND Cesarean Section surgery than there had been with the first one. On hindsight, therefore, they had taken a grave risk with their decision not to use contraception. She knew she should be frightened, and it tore at the fibers of her heart to think that William was suffering, that he had to deal with worrying that she might die, that he could lose her, to the point that he, the ever so moral and upstanding William Murdoch, was pushing for her to have an abortion. _"But,"_ she seemed to be reaching a conclusion in her mind, " _the mistake has been made…,_ " and once again, just like had happened with William Jr., Julia had woken up nauseous the past few mornings…

" _PERHAPS, THIS WAS THE ONLY WAY,"_ the fairy-godmother voice told inside her head, Julia wondering to herself, to the universe, to the stars up above, if it was not fated to be written this way. After all, they had been wanting another child for over a year now, and their attempts at adopting a child – a beautiful child for them to love, a baby to raise as their own, to be a sibling to William J., all their efforts seemed to be accomplishing nothing but failure. It didn't help matters that the whole ordeal provided fodder for the newspapers in their attacks on her… even worse, they had moved to attacking William for "going against his Catholic faith" and using contraceptives and then wanting to adopt a child, "simply so his wife could continue working with him."

 _And, wham_ , the sumptuous wave of euphoria bubbled up inside of her again with the thought, the glorious thought, of her _being able to have another child, another child WITH WILLIAM._ Truthfully, and despite the conflict and the dangers, she couldn't be happier. Julia reminded herself of the moment that she had figured out she was pregnant, in the downstairs bathroom just this morning, so sick, him, holding her hair back for her as she heaved into the toilet. " _William,_ _the man was truly a brilliant detective_ ," she noted to herself shaking her head with disbelief as she rounded the corner coming down their stairs, _William was so perceptive that he had already figured it out,_ _ **before**_ _she had_. Another sigh as she worked to cope with the potential disappointment, warning herself not to count her chickens before they were hatched, for she had not yet taken the pregnancy test – _the rabbit had not yet died_. All logic aside, she knew, and she knew William knew too, that she was pregnant, despite the fact that they had decided to be practical, and to put aside any decisions until after she had visited Isaac and they had the results. The waiting, along with everything else, severely added to the tension, just under the surface, their disagreeing about what to do steaming the pressure, wobbling and bobbling the lid on their relationship. She sighed, _it was certainly no surprise he was having trouble sleeping…_

The unsettling hint of it was there once she had almost made it to the bottom of the stairs – _"No lights!"_ _If he were making hot chocolate in the kitchen, there should be that warm glow in the hall_ , sprinkling out into the foyer… She checked anyway, thinking to herself, " _perhaps his mood was so low that he would be sitting there, alone, in the dark_."

Her heartrate picked up upon NOT finding him there.

 _Perhaps the dining room?_

 _Empty._

William was not in the living room either, he had not decided for some reason to sleep separate from her on the couch, and Julia's panic was beginning to take hold. Her brain reasoned and figured, each offering meant to relieve the sickening feeling of concern churning, gurgling, in her core. _If he had been called out on a case, the phone would have woken her too_. _"He must have gone out on his own, having thought of some clue or another out of the blue…" but there weren't any cases right now…_ The worry doubled, one more explanation quashed.

Back in the foyer, she noticed that William's coat was missing. " _He'd left in the middle of the night…!?"_ Her then near-panic soared when she spotted it, the next clue forcing her to take up battle with her terror – just behind her consciousness, _"Gillies, James Gillies…"_ and the reminder rushed up that _"…Gillies was dead,"_ and with it the realistic sensation, almost a flashback it was so strong, the cold, dense feeling of having the monster's brain in her hands, the lumps and bumps that had made his cruel and evil mind tick rendered to mere bulges between her fingers. Julia froze there, beyond disturbing now, her eyes hard-and-fast on the bolt below the doorknob… " _ **The front door wasn't locked**_ ," the message came breathless inside her head. _William would never have left their home in the middle of the night without locking the door behind him_. Concern exploded exponentially into dread.

Imagining the worst, _his body on the ground, blood…_ confronting, pushing through her foreboding, Julia turned the doorknob, its ' _click'_ piercing the fresh-winter night silence, and she opened the front door. The moon was full, drowning the world outside in its creamy light.

Relief flooded heaviness into her legs, debilitating, excruciating, as the theft of her breath yielded in a gasp. " _William's there_!" her brain screamed its internal whisper, " _Thank God, he's right there. He's alright. He's alright."_

He was safe, sitting there on their porch bench in the moonlight, his pajamas under his coat, his bare feet, with one crossed up over his other knee, lending an aura of casualness that felt out of place.

Her relief was quickly overshadowed by worry as she noticed that her decanter of whisky was resting on the arm of the bench next to him, and in William's hand, _she had had to look twice to believe it_ , there was a glass of whisky.

He had heard the door open, and had turned to catch her eyes as she peeked out.

William strained to read her expression – _a mixture of being relieved, yet with fret, compassion and fear?_

Julia stepped back into the house to get her coat and joined him on the porch-bench.

Silence filled the air between them for a while.

Finally, Julia spoke, "My grandmother called liquor, "liquid courage."

William wrinkled up the right side of his face, considering the implications and said, "The last time I imbibed was right before the FIRST TIME I proposed to you, got down on my knee outside your front door. I had had some of the Inspector's scotch – pumped myself up …" he frowned, "It didn't turn out so well." William downed his glass.

Julia fought her instincts, held back the urge to react. "Well…," she exhaled calmly, "not immediately," She sidled closer to him, seeking intimacy, "but it turned out pretty well in the long run, don't you agree?" she asked.

Their eyes met, held, each soaking in the other, deepening.

William nodded.

"Pour me one?" Julia said, working to sound nonchalant as she tried to work up the courage to ask him what was wrong, to fight the trepidation, for the ride, once it had begun, was likely to be rough.

William poured her a glass of whisky from the decanter and she downed it in one big swig.

Playfully, he raised an eyebrow at her, and she giggled.

 _Oh, how she wished everything could be alright._

Her expression changed, and she asked him, "So William, why do we find ourselves out here on this porch in our pajamas and barefoot at two A.M. on this beautiful February night, hmm?" Julia wrapped William's arm around her and nestled in against him. Her psychiatry training told her it would be easier for him to disclose if she were not looking directly at him.

"I had a bad dream – I didn't want to go back to sleep afterwards," he gave quickly. _Oh, but the tension was there, tightening._ She envisioned him reaching up to rub his brow, but instead William poured himself another glass of whisky.

Trying to keep the mood light, Julia pushed him to tell her more, "Mr. Murdoch, you do know how very much your psychiatrist-wife loves to analyze dreams – particularly yours. Please William, do tell."

William frowned slightly and said, "There's not really much to analyze about this one, Julia. I think its meaning is pretty much clear."

Julia gave him a little squeeze, "Share it with me, William," she pushed.

William swallowed down his drink and then he told her the story of his dream, the whole while fidgeting and turning the empty glass in his fingers.

 **They were on a family outing with William Jr., walking along a stream. William decided to try to teach the young boy how to skip rocks across the surface of the water. He demonstrated how to choose a palm-sized, flat rock, how to hold it so that its flattest edge was horizontal to the water, and how to flick your wrist as you tossed it forward to get it to skip. Surprising him, Julia picked up a rock and sailed it towards the water, creating five or six rippling circles on the surface, each one symmetrically shrinking and quickening their beat, dotting across the water. Very impressed, he had turned to her and said, "You never cease to amaze me Julia," and then he had taken her into a soft, growing, deepening, scrumptiously hungry kiss. William explained that in the dream, while they were kissing, he had been holding onto, and admiring, and adoring, Julia's hips, and that that was the reason he could feel it when it had happened, when her skirt moved, and with the pull of the fabric under his fingers he had heard the voice of a child –** _ **not William Jr.**_ **– call to her, "Mommy," and tug again on her dress. He remembered that he had expected it in the dream, that he had known that their kiss would be broken, and that then Julia would turn to attend to the child. And when she did so, at that very moment, a stunning blue butterfly fluttered into view and landed on William's hand – so soft, so personal and important, its touch, as if the flapping of its wings could somehow change the whole world with its secret. Marveling at it, and at his pleasant reaction to it, he turned back towards Julia to tell her that he no longer felt "uneasy" about butterflies. But Julia was nowhere in sight. Immediately panic set in. She was gone! He called out for her, frantically scanning the area. Such terror, for he knew it in his bones that she was gone, but denial forced him to look everywhere, calling and calling and calling her name. Then he saw William Jr. standing in the stream –** _ **now much older than three**_ **, crying, bent over with bearing the pain of huge convulsive gasps of wailing rolling through his young body. William Jr. turned and saw him standing at the shore and instantly anger flooded his beautiful little face, and then William Jr. slammed a long stick down into the shallow water – spitting mad, splashing and crashing the waters into millions of little pieces, little slivers of sparkling glass, as if the water had been frozen solid, and William Jr.'s pain, his anger, had shattered it, and then their little boy screamed with all his might at William, at his father, his beautiful face crimson-red with his wailing and his anger, "You were supposed to hold on to her! I hate you, Daddy! I hate you! Why did you have to let her go?!" William dreamt that next he was in the center of the stream with William Jr. and he fell down onto his knees in front of his little son there in the water, completely collapsing into sobbing as he hugged their little child tight and he swore that he was sorry, so very, very sorry. It was William's sobbing, the sounds cascading out of the dream-world into reality, his grieved and desperate sobbing, that had woken him up.**

Emotions heavy, time passed between them, there together, in the moonlight. Each of them had been impacted, burdened, by imagining the dream.

Julia was the first to speak, sensing safety in the realm of science, of reason, she would endeavor to analyze his dream, "Well, it does seem to clearly express your worry over losing me as a result of trying to have this child, I'll grant you that," she admitted.

William held her eyes and nodded. Neither of them conscious of it… _his holding his breath._

She continued, "And the butterfly…"

 _And both of their minds darted to the same place, to the same memory, him in her office with her at the asylum, tears in his eyes, apprehensive, and so, so trusting, butterflies fluttering about all around them everywhere in their 'logic-defying' way. The image, the memory, truly beautiful, and sad, and hopeful…_

Julia took a breath, letting the exhale bathe her heart in the warmth and beauty of the memory to fuel her, and she said what they both knew, in her heart knowing that simply saying the hidden trouble aloud could lessen its power, but also that naming it made it more real, and she hoped for the best and she pushed on and said, "The butterfly indicates that your unconscious is making a connection between the death of your mother and my …" her hesitation attested to the significance and the power of the association, "… to my death." Julia swallowed, then made herself breathe again. "What age would you say William Jr. was… after he had changed, at the end of your dream?" she feigned curiosity, for she already knew what William's answer would be.

Nodding his head, William replied, "Eight-years old – like I was when I found my mother's body in the stream." William got lost for a moment in the memory again, _seeing his mother lying there, running to her – he had had a stick, a long stick in his hand, just like William Jr. had had in the dream…_

"Do you think William Jr. would blame you, um, for my loss… like you blamed your father?" she asked him.

 _And again, shared memories replayed between them – of when William had had to arrest his father for murder all those years ago, and he had felt stuck grappling so desperately with his childhood traumas at the time, grateful in finding Julia's ear when he had needed it most. If he had not already known she was the one for him, he would have known it the moment she suggested a walk along the shoreline of Toronto Island, offering that it was a lovely place to go when needing to think, even then teasing him, joking about his request to have her accompany him, mischievously telling him that she thought it best that she did so because he had "been rather confused of late," and she did not want him to "get lost among the lagoons."_ They had walked along together in near silence, comfortable and lovely, and what he remembered most, his heart stabbing now, now sitting there with her on their front porch all these years later, with the thought coming out of the cherished memory _– he remembered how much he did NOT feel alone, and William remembered now, that he had thought to himself that he would never feel alone again. It had been like a whole new sense of the world had been opened up to him, he FELT everything differently, the feeling of his feet on the ground, the breeze and the Sun on his skin, the fresh air in his lungs, like he had never fully been alive before, and he remembered thinking then, that there was no one in the world like her, that he was so lucky to have found her, that she was wondrous and beautiful and rare and remarkable, and he knew he could not live wi…_

The interruption, _his own voice_ , "I don't know …" he said, some other part of William seeming to answer her, his focus springing away from the unthinkable to her intuitive question about forgiveness and fathers, "Maybe, I guess." He put the whisky glass down on the arm of the bench, then fiddled with his wedding ring. He was building up the nerve to ask Julia directly, thinking to get to the point, but so very scared of the answer, about whether or not she wanted to go through with the pregnancy – already knowing what she would say, but hoping he was wrong, hoping she would have reconsidered, that she would have changed her mind.

Julia sighed, she would be the one to breach it, "William, I must admit that I do SO WANT this baby. And I would like to try to have it. But… but, it seems that you want me to have an abortion instead?"

 _This woman always astounded him._

The trust tremendous, overcoming his fears, William opened up his heart and let his thoughts pour out. He reached up and took one of her curls in his fingers, allowed the backs of his fingers to revel in the softness of her cheek. His thumb brushed along her jawline, his eyes into hers, the honesty there ached. "Julia," he needed a breath to speak the truth, to conquer the fear and the shame, "I don't think I could go on without you."

And she felt her world skip and flip with the juxtaposition of it, for William Murdoch loved her so much it soared her, and how much joy that brought her was overwhelming sometimes, and how much she loved him too, and it spun her wildly, and yet, she felt crushed to the ground at the same time, for she hurt for him as well, and that hurt burned, burned as if it would burn a hole right through her chest…

William swallowed before he went on, "I don't want us to take the risk…" but it hurt him too much now, making him turn away, the back of his brain seeing her reaction, seeing her resolve. He finished the thought, his tone more monotone, more beaten, "…of losing you."

An idea trumpeted in his head and he turned on the bench, lined himself up more directly in front of her. His words out quickly, he pleaded, "Julia, remember sitting with me on that dining-room table, leaning back against me in my arms, waiting, waiting for Isaac, or for Emily, or anybody to make it through that torturous snowstorm, your labor advancing, shock setting in, internal bleeding… your life… So close, Julia. It was so close, we were so close to losing you. I had never felt such fear and such grief, premature, that grief, but it was grief nonetheless. Not again, I don't ever want to feel that again."

William's beautiful voice was cracking, and she could see his gorgeous eyes were filled with tears, and his idea had worked because she had remembered it, and it was debilitating and terrifying and devastating, and her heart raced in her chest, and she remembered it _in her body_ , the agonizing, unbearable stabs in her womb, and the panicked , nauseating certainty that she would die, _that their baby would die_ , the mere thought of the memory of that so excruciating that Julia's eyes swelled with tears, and then the thought that William would be all alone, and Julia wholly choked up too.

A tear spilled down her cheek to be brushed away by William's thumb. She swallowed, sniffled.

A deep breath, William sounded stronger now, "I want this baby too, Julia. I really do… But I want you more. And…" He shook his head, he pushed away the dread, for it was intolerable, what he was about to say. His exhale huge, he would ask her now, "And I don't want to take the chance… I think we need to ask Isaac to..."

He saw it in her expression, _**the 'no,'**_ and it erupted a flare of urgency and anger in him. _To have made such a horrible decision, faced God, no – the Devil, with his prayers, prayers that had only led to one choice, leaving him feeling helpless and abandoned with the direness of it, the sheer Hell of it… One way, there was only way he could go, and it was pure agony, for that one way was unspeakably horrible, something utterly unimaginable for him to have to do, to do THAT – to slay his own child, for that to be the better choice, and still, even with all that, he had chosen, he had chosen the unacceptable to avoid the unbearable._

William's grit jaw, the disappointment in his tone, chilled her, as he said…

The loudness rumbling to a yell, he demanded, "Do you have any idea how difficult this choice is for me, Julia? Any idea at all?!"

He saw her eyes widen…

Then, suddenly remembering the dream, and their son sleeping upstairs, William's words rushed out in torrents, fighting, arguing, "We can't. We can't. Not now, now that we have William Jr…" the thought truly floored him, "William Jr. would have to go through his life without you, Julia… without you. He loves you too much for that," hope shimmered in the moonlit pools in his eyes as he shook his head at her, "We can't let that happen… you and I. We love him too much. And… honestly, I think we made a mistake, back then, with him. I truly believe we did. It would have been wiser, back then, not to have risked trying to have him. We should have done it back then too, chosen for you to have… for Isaac to have performed an…" The distaste of the bitter word stuck in his mouth, and William stammered. The stall gave time, gave room, for the other side of the argument to emerge inside his head prompting him to be honest, to tell the WHOLE truth, and a corner of his mouth wrinkled revealing it, "I must admit, I'm so very grateful we didn't," his eyes, so beautiful, held with all their might to hers, and he shook his head at the awfulness of the thought, the thought of not having William Jr. in their lives, and even worse, at having had been the ones to … to kill the little bud of him, and he still, despite all that, said, "but we should have. We should have decided for the safer route then too. That terror on that dining room table, together, that night… We can't do that again, especially now, now the cost of the loss is even higher."

Julia's heart was pounding and thundering in her chest. She was scared now. Scared, not from their shared remembering of the past, but for what was about to come. For she knew she wanted to keep her pregnancy, and she felt strongly about it. And she realized in this moment, that she would not be swayed, for although he was right that that terror they had been through that night was awful, she was absolutely incapable of enduring the thought of their not ever having had William Jr. She would need to push him, to get William to see past his concerns. She argued that the real danger in the case of their son's birth was that there had been a large snowstorm that had trapped them in their home when she had gone into labor, earlier than they had expected. "This baby will be due in the fall, William," she urged, "And we can take better precautions… Perhaps I should go into the hospital earlier, now… um, now that we know the baby will probably come early. Isaac would be the one performing the surgery. It will be much safer this time…"

William's head was spinning with dread. He felt cold, and drained, like every drop of blood in his veins was spilling into a puddle underneath him. _He was losing her. My God, it was really happening. He couldn't take it, he just couldn't._ William suddenly remembered the whisky. Precarious, teetering, he reached to pour himself another drink.

Julia reached across his chest to place her hand on his arm as he lifted the decanter of whisky, bringing it to the lip of his glass, waiting, empty, still resting on the arm of the bench. There was the tiniest of 'clinks' as the glass touched. "Please don't William," she said.

There was a pause. There was a hesitation. It was so unsure, whether he would, or whether he would not.

Another 'clink,' and in the periphery, Julia sat up straighter.

William finished pouring the drink and put the decanter down. He left the glass where it sat on the bench.

Julia could see him clench his jaw. _He was holding his breath._

 _She could not catch his eye._

She brought her hand back to her lap and asked him, "Did that make you angry?"

"Yes," William said, unwilling to look at her, "I don't like being told what to do."

"I wasn't telling you, I was asking you," she said.

With that, William lifted the glass and swallowed the whisky down. He turned to face her, his manner harsh and blunt, and he asked, "So, even knowing how I feel, even knowing how hard I fought with the consequences of choosing an abortion, you still want to try to have the baby?"

Julia sighed. Her jaw lifted, and then she corrected, not wanting to appear stubborn. "Yes … I do." Julia shifted, increasing the distance, she sat up taller. A breath, her mind urging calm, _strong, but calm_. "William," her exhale rushed out, warm in the winter air. _She decided, she would dare_. "William, this is my body. It is ME who has to go through the pregnancy, and the surgery."

Abruptly, absolutely deluged with fear, overcome with it, he felt his stomach wrench. William bent over, hugging his sides and rocking himself for a few strokes before nausea sprung him forward, and he bolted up off the bench, and hurled himself to lean over their porch fence, and he vomited over the edge into the bushes.

 _It felt like it was someone else,_ he wondered at the strange sensation.

And then, so quickly after the panic, he felt the anger move in. " _How dare she claim control over this decision!_ " his head screamed. His jaw clamped, with a force that could chip his teeth. Such energy in his veins, feeding his muscles. Flaring, screaming. _She had no right to leave him out of it._ Hands fierce, fingers locked into fists, he tried to find reason. _He could see why some men lost control_ – the fury was enthralling, intoxicating. _He needed to get away, get away from her, before he did something he would regret later._

 _Stuck, stunned_ , back on the bench, Julia watched, her jaw dropped, and her eyes instantly drowned with the shimmering-white of tears blurring her vision. She wished, with everything she had, that she could take it back. _How could she…_ _How could she say such a thing TO WILLIAM?_ Her own voice in her head, said it again, the pierce of the cutting words slicing her heart, her own words landing as nothing but cruel, " _MY BODY…" she had said,_ a _nd she had said it to William, told him that it was HER Body, NOT HIS… My God, it hurt,_ seeing how severely William had reacted to her words. And then a reprieve appeared with the thought, " _or was it just too much alcohol?"_ the suggestion a desperate attempt to ease her guilt, her remorse…

William was already down the front steps, headed down their path, halfway to the street, before she could get herself to move.

She ran, rushing to place her body in front of him, trying to hold him back from leaving. "Please William, don't go. I was wrong to imply that it's solely up to me." William side-stepped around her and advanced forward, only to have Julia rush ahead again, and stand between him and their front gate once more. "It's just that the laws give men all the power – and it's so unfair that men can decide what women can do with their own bodies. I know you agree with me. You know such attitudes are wrong … Please William..."

William steamed past her, opening the gate and walking out onto the sidewalk, barefoot, in his pajamas and his coat, off into the night.

Yielding to the urge to cry, Julia tried to reassure herself that he would be back, her efforts holding her total collapse at bay. She went into the house and got a glass of water, reasoning that when William returned it would help his body better cope with his overconsumption of alcohol. She sat down on the porch steps, naked underneath her nightgown and coat, somehow still not feeling the cold, waiting for him.

 _Odd_ , the way the mind tries to distract from the pain, to find something _ELSE_ to think about… searching for a means of coping. Her thoughts dove into the glass of water – " _It could freeze!"_ A concern quickly eased with the next thought, scientific, observant, centered on something in the here and now, something safe to think about, " _It's too warm for that, even though it's the dead of winter,"_ she thought. " _No freezing water tonight, no broken glass,"_ she told herself, clinging to the grounding of the thoughts about the glass of water, _there, right there, right now,_ sitting right in front of her occupying space on the front porch steps _._ Intrusive, uninvited, _images of sharp shatters and shards of glass, smacked and splintered and tinkling with their myriads of iridescent collisions, demolished by their little, beautiful, suffering William Jr.'s temper-driven stick,_ swept her back to William's dream, to their beloved son. _The exact same age William was when he found his mother dead in the stream_ , and it amazed her, the imagery, for it would be the child's hurt, the young boy's anger, whether that child was William or William Jr. in William's mind, or both of them, and it would be that pain, and, with it, that lack of forgiveness, that could shatter the world…

Unavoidable it seemed, her mind had returned to the troubles, and with the return, her crying resumed. She imagined William out there somewhere, barefoot, in his pajamas… _he was so upset_. He would be crying or furious, or both, or one and then the other, but it was undeniable, he would be hurting, and it was heart-wrenching, absolutely heart-wrenching, to know she had caused it.

 _The last time_ sprung to mind _, the last time they had sat together on a bench and she had broken his heart, breaking her own in the process._ They had barely gotten started courting back then, _and my God, they were so much in love_ , and then she had told him, there, sitting with him on that park bench, at least _**part**_ of her darkest secret made known to him, and then they had parted, for the first time. Then, too, because of an abortion… How impossible, the irony of it striking her as iconic, the change now, now that it was the upstanding, moral, religiously devout, William Murdoch being the one to ask for that choice, that very same choice that he had condemned her for all those years ago. " _There was an important difference between that first time and now_ , _though…"_ she reminded herself, " _They were NOT splitting apart now." William would come home. He would hear her apology. He would know it was heartfelt and sincere and honest down to her core. He loved her. He would always love her. She was sure of it… sure of it now._

A deep breath, _think of something less emotional_. Then, she tried to imagine what it must feel like to be him, to be William, _just a man, a flesh-and-blood man_ , and to be so dependent on a woman, on someone else, to have a baby for you. _A man simply can't do it on his own_. _It must be terrible, to be so powerless._ Suddenly, on such a visceral level, all those male efforts at controlling women down through the ages, from times primeval, men using their superior strength to control women's bodies, to limit their actions, restrict their clothing, their interactions – particularly their interactions with males other than the husband, they all made sense. _But, not William. Truthfully, never William._

Julia fell into another memory. " _It had been the woman's condescending tone as much as what she had said to him_ ," the female scientist, " _Miss Clark, brilliant, much like William,"_ she thought, " _but forced into militancy by an oppressive male-dominated world, and likely a good dose of personal, bad experiences at the hands of men as well… it had been her tone, her manner, as much as her dismissive words that seemed to hurt the most,"_ Julia hearing Miss Clark's attack on William all over again in her mind, Miss Clark telling him, snidely, coldly, " _If a baby is born, you will have been_ _ **merely its donor.**_ **"** Women did all the work, took all the risks, the man was nothing more than a gene donor. _"True,"_ Julia guessed, _"Men, men like William, perhaps it was true, in some ways, were practically worthless."_ Her heart hurt so.

After a time, her tears had stopped, and she found herself looking down at her bare feet, which were planted down on the wood of the bottom step of their front porch, wondering about the sight, _"Am I truly as crazy as this,"_ she thought, for even though it was a relatively warm night, _"it is February after all."_

She hadn't heard the gate…

Suddenly, they were just there, _**William's feet**_ , _in front of hers_ , at the place where the front path met the porch steps. Relief and love exploded through her.

 _She heard the soft "thump" of their coated bodies bumping together, before she even knew she had stood up and jumped off of the bottom step and into his arms. She could smell the scent of him, mixed with the smell cold. It felt like she would never, ever, let go._

"I'm so glad you came back. I'm so sorry, William. I'm so sorry," she cried into his shoulder. She squeezed him harder, couldn't help herself for she was overwrought, "Please don't leave me," her forlorn whisper asked of him.

There was compassion, tenderness, in his voice as he answered her, "I just needed a walk to calm down… I will **never** leave you Julia, never," he promised.

Knowing they needed to talk, William suggested winsomely, "May I join you?" gesturing to the porch steps.

"I'd like that," she wiggled at him, prompting him to smile in the glow of the full moon, to light up her world and her heart, igniting hope with his charm.

He took a seat on the steps and Julia sat down next to him. She offered him the glass of water, "Here – water will help your body recover from the alcohol."

He raised an eyebrow at her and challenged, "Telling me what to do again?"

"Doctor's orders," she said smiling at his playfulness, accepting the dig underneath it with a slight register of the sting, "This is different," she defended.

William acquiesced, drank down the glass of water.

Julia heard it in her head as she watched him drinking, saw it in her mind, the image, the memory so magnificent it would be with her forever – _that glorious moment_ , when they were sitting together there on that picnic blanket and William Henry Murdoch had pulled out a bottle of absinthe from the picnic basket, to follow his gourmet peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. She had declared it then, now re-hearing her own breathy, stunned, happiness all over again, replaying it inside her head, _"William, I've never known you to drink…"_ The lovely memory folded into the more recent one, of her seeing him sitting there on the porch bench tonight, him, William Murdoch, drinking whiskey… alone, all alone struggling to cope with his troubles.

"I must admit, William," she said, "I was quite surprised to find you… um, to find you with the whiskey…" Suddenly her voice just stopped. She had thought, but was unwilling to say it out loud, _that the sight of him sitting there drinking whisky alone had terrified her, for she had known, upon seeing it, that he was much, much more upset about her pregnancy than she had originally thought._

William's eyes had followed the water glass as he placed it down on the porch step, then they seemed to consider his bare feet. He had been avoiding eye-contact with her, still listening, but then, when her words had unexpectedly stopped midstream, he had turned to her.

Their eyes held for a moment, for a pause… waiting.

His sigh exhaled, then, characteristic of him, William reached up to rub his brow. He would try, try to tell her what was happening inside his head.

"The problem is I… I feel so alone with it, with the dilemma. It's such an awful choice to have to make. It seems to strike at the very core of me, of who I am." His hands clasped together in his lap. He needed another breath, a moment to think. He felt her eyes on him, knew she would see his mouth wrinkle. "And I can't talk to Father Clements about this, Julia. It won't help, going to Sunday Mass tomorrow. There's really no one but you. It's NOT like when I pulled the trigger on the gun, intending to kill Gillies – There was never any real threat with having had done that that would have led to my being arrested, certainly not to a conviction…" His brain added in his head, "… _not for THAT murder, anyway – unlike like this one…"_

Invasively, he remembered hearing the verdict come in, back when Julia was on trial for Darcy's murder, _Julia found guilty, then sentenced to be hung by the neck until she was dead,_ and how, back when it had happened, all the blood had seemed to rush out of him, such shock and disbelief… Distasteful, sickening, he pushed the memory away.

William went on, "Dr. Restell was sentenced to be hung for doing the same thing I'm considering we do…" He cleared his throat, _it was even worse than that, William felt a chill rip through him with the_ _ **shame**_ _,_ cracking his ability to speak, "…that _**I'm**_ asking you to do."

 _She thought she saw his eyes tearing…_

He breathed, moving past it, "Restell would be dead now if he had not escaped…"

His voice quivered under the pressure as he said, "You… Me…," then chancing a glance at her.

 _Julia saw the fear in his face_ …

"… We could both be put on trial, killed… Our son would be parentless. No, I can't risk disclosing this in the Confessional… No, not to anyone." William took a deep breath, pushing himself on, "And…" his head shook as if he could deny it, "It seems that if I choose the one way, I will be damned to go straight to Hell for doing such an abominable thing, but if I choose the other way, well then I'd be in Hell right here on Earth." There was a point when William stopped the fight against its showing, that he felt himself let it go, and he felt the wave of pain take him over… tears, voice choking-up, as he gave in, ceased in trying to hold back the image that kept surfacing. "I keep seeing it, Julia… in my mind…"

 _The hurt seized her too._

"Dr. Tash comes out of the operating room, and he has so much blood on him – and I know it's your blood, and I already know, but the anguish on his face, and I just… It cuts me off at the knees, like I'll never, never be able to breathe again," his worst fears in all the world, so palpable, out now.

Julia rotated towards him from her side of the steps, reached for his hands, took them in both of hers, her request for him turning him, too, on the step, bringing them closer. "Listen to me, William…"

 _And somehow, he already felt a healing beginning deep inside…_

"It's different now than it was back on that dining room table," Julia said, adding, giving, "Yes, perhaps it's true – trying to have this baby is more dangerous than when we tried to have William Jr., but now there's a more important difference…" She paused, wondering if he would know. _He was so opened, so raw, she fell even deeper in love with him in that moment._ "William Jr., William! It's different because of William Jr., just like you said," She shifted, closer still. "When I was hooked-up to Gillies' bomb…" she waited for his nod wanting him to be with her, "I realized it then. It's so profound… Remember I told you that I had thought YOU had been killed by Gillies… um, after the gunshot, well, after the shot and then when I heard the baby crying, and I thought it was you, I thought I had lost you forever. And I realized then, William, that it was _because_ of our baby that I was not alone without you. It was not like it had been before, to lose you. Our baby needed me, and William this part staggered me, but it was true, I needed him too. We would have each other, neither of us could survive the loss of you alone, but with each other. Don't you see?"

He nodded, he agreed, but still the image of Isaac's expression, _beaten, grieved, Julia's life blood all over him… sorry_ , appeared again in his mind, and with it the insurmountable pain, and William wrinkled his face at her. Afraid she would be disappointed, he dropped his chin, turned away.

Julia reached over and touched his cheek, bringing his face back to hers.

Her fingers stayed holding him as she spoke, "William, the way I see it, we only have one womb between the two of us…"

He interrupted, wanting her to know he understood what she had said about it being _her_ body, "And it's yours," his words rushed out to tell, "You're right about that, Julia."

Subtle, her sigh, then a hint of a frown.

" _Odd,_ " he noticed, " _THAT disappointed her…"_

Julia's voice dropped down an octave, drawing William nearer, "William, it's the closest you'll ever get – this womb," her eyes glanced down into her lap before coming back to meet his, "…It's the only one…" her thumb glanced across the edges of his ear, "It's the only womb for you, too, not just the only one for me, William. I see that now. And you sacrificed so much. You could have had a wife, a wife that could bear children, but you chose me, me over having children of your own, back then. Why should I be surprised you'd choose the same way now? That sacrifice, William, its monumental, your love, and I can't, I simply can't..." Julia's head shook refusing the possibility of denying him this, "When we get the results, after we talk through our options with Isaac, if you still choose for us to end this pregnancy, I'll agree, we will end it William. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, I promise you. We will, if that's what you still want…" She added, wanting all the cards on the table, "But you should know William, having an abortion, losing our child…" she wished it were not so, but her eyes swelled into teary pools and her voice choked up…

 _And she saw William fall into the grief of such a huge loss after her, with her…_

Julia's face contorted with the pain and she went on, "It would leave me tattered and torn, William. And I know you would be too. And, I can't deny that I know I would feel immense sorrow, and I can't promise you that I wouldn't be inconsolable, at least for a while." Julia's fingers dropped from his face, sought for a solid connection, golden and true, finding his wedding ring, his hands once again in hers. _She loved him so much_.

 _The sincerity in her voice moved him as she concluded…_

"But, I understand, William… I understand. And I accept it wholeheartedly, I do," she finished.

 _Touched, understood, deeply, deeply, understood – LOVED_ , William found himself grateful, and terribly sorry. Speechless, he could only nod.

Her first, in saying it was done, Julia's lips clamped into a smile, then William did the same. She signaled a change of subject by wrapping her arm into his. "Husband," she said, an air of mischief with her tone, "I am grappling with a dilemma of my own…"

"Oh?" he said, wanting only to be closer to her.

She went on, her eyes drawing his downward, "As a doctor, I know we should go inside, as I am quite concerned we may end up with frostbitten feet. But, as your wife, I believe that, after spending so much time out on our porch on such a romantic night, we should share at least one kiss…"

William's mouth curled into a little smile. He gave her one of those delicious, big-brown-eyed side-glances before he said. "I do believe the best choice would be to share a kiss, as I have noticed a correlation between kissing you and an increase in circulation. And better blood-flow would ward off frostbite, would it not?" he asked.

Julia held eye-contact with him while she brought herself around to kneel one step below the step he was sitting on, directly in front of him, spreading his legs apart to make room for herself to fit there, and pressing herself in closer to him. She reached up with both hands to hold his handsome face, hovering over him. Her lips grew nearer. "Winsome logic as usual, Mr. Murdoch," she remarked, _seducing every cell in his body to change its orientation and focus solely on her._ Softly, slowly, she brought her lips down onto his, and she gently, delicately, melodiously, kissed him, pulling him in deeper. And deeper. And deeper.

 _So sweet_ , William was surprised by the intensity of his longing for such a tender touch from her. But… as the kiss deepened, his more carnal urges rose, swelled, stormed, firing with lightning bolt precision, directly to his groin. Controlling his desire to passionately dive into her, he forced himself to match her steadier rhythm, align with her gentler mood. He opened his lips to her, and instantly she deepened her kiss, his hearty moan escaping when her velvety tongue slid into his mouth. His hands found their way to her hips, _luscious, this woman is so luscious_ , he explored the moldable, jiggly, curves of her.

And as Julia's fingers rubbed and grazed across his face, the manly stubble she discovered there stirred her womb into drenching twists, and her body melted and oozed with a sudden surge of molten desire for him.

 _Hot, hungry…_

 _Contagious, the loss of control…_

William's chest heaved with his dizzy breathlessness. "Julia," his raspy voice in her ear.

Her breaths were rapid, barreling, only driving him on more.

"Mmm," she moaned, "I love this scratchy feeling, William. Your animal side…"

 _Off on a tangent_ , his brain remembered his own silly idea from years ago as she had tried to explain the incongruous thought to him that women were attracted to dominant, overpowering men AND to peaceable types who rely in their minds – _"a compassionate thug,"_ he had thought, making him chuckle to himself, now somewhat embarrassed by the fledgling exchange. His words coming off as drunken due to his spiraling brain, he said to her, "I've noticed it has an effect on you…" and then his mouth sucked and kissed and nibbled lower down into her neck, taking the taste of her in.

Jungle-sweet, she answered, "I trust it… that animal side, _in you_."

So quickly they were up the steps, onto the porch, Julia's back rammed into the outside wall of their house, her coat buttons undone, his hands on her, and he pressed demandingly into her, ravaging, scrumptiously wild, primal. Her nightgown threatened to tear apart, the tiny, white, delicate little buttons almost ripped off with his molding and squeezing through the cottony fabric, her bosoms, big and round and so… _**mmm,**_ between his fingers, her deep cleavage squashed and plundered within both of his hands.

" _William_ ," his name emerged out of the center of her being, spun, upside down, swam round and round in her head, trickled into her throat, cascaded thick and rich into his ear…

"William," her voice lured him in, "I love you. You know that, don't you?"

"Mmm," he answered her.

 _OH,_ but when he pressed against her _down there_ , _eager, very, very eager_ , firmly through his thick winter coat, _reaching out for her, rising up to her_ , and how the ground shook and she almost fell off of the Earth.

Julia's lips to his ear, so flooringly lusty, whispered, "Now… about _**OUR**_ penis, husband…"

 _And William's knees buckled with the wham of it…_

It took all his might to fight back from the internal maelstrom to tease her, "Ours?" an eyebrow lifting up.

"Yes, ' _ **ours**_ ," she held her ground. Her voice lowered, deepened, "I really like it…" she giggled before he felt her teeth nip at his ear.

 _So delicious, the soupiness flooding his brain._

Hot, hot, her breath poured into him, "You know where I want it, don't you William…?"

Her rhythm enticed, her hands fiddling… fiddling with something… _the buttons on his coat, the lower buttons on his coat!_

"Please now…" her urgency called. Julia's fingers snuck in, devious and perfect, her hand slipped in through the convenience flap of his pajama bottoms. "You know exactly how. You are so good at the 'how' of it…" Her lips overpowered his mouth in a kiss as her succulent hand hugged him down where man becomes beast, and William fought with all his might not to gasp, not to moan.

But… the way the air gushed out of William's smothered, mushed, nostrils gave away the imperative state he was in. He was nearly gone, hanging on by a thread.

His lips stung when she let them go, tattered-red and abandoned to the cold, "Push me over the edge, William. Please…"

There was no turning back from this, turbulently his lust stole his control, and William kissed her then with a passion that erupted her need for him so desperately that her moan erupted like a firestorm into his mouth, and then the agony of the wrenching of her womb made her give out a tiny, desperate whimper, so weak, so vulnerable it nearly killed him, and then crucial, unrestrained, nothing holding her back, she arched up into him, plunging for him. She had yielded, succumbed to her body's urges, and now her fingers feverishly rushed to fervidly find the string of his pajama bottoms, to tear through, to free him, wiggling and wriggling and pleading for him to get closer with the rhythm of each push of her plump, swollen bosoms, through the fabric of her nightgown within his fingers, up into him, up into him, rocketing the world…

"Now, William. Now, right here," she pleaded.

 _It was amazing how he did it, found the willpower not to let go, at least enough to tease her further._

Discipline in his tone, he scolded, letting her know she had been caught, "Uh-uh. No, you don't, Miss Ogden…" A quick kiss, to tempt her lips, "There will be no rash public displays of our ardor tonight."

It was, however, mere moments later, that he had his way with her, _**inside**_ their house, in the foyer, on the side-table, not able to wait until they were upstairs.

Circulation was definitely increased; frostbite clearly thwarted.

) (

The Murdoch's did not make early Mass the next day. As it was, they had to slink into the later service just before it had begun, William guiding his young son through his attempt at blessing himself with holy water before they found seats together in the back. It ended up being fortunate that their seats were close to the exit because morning sickness overtook Julia _– twice_! Regrettably, however, it seemed multiple eyes turned to watch her rush out both times. William's glances her way each time she returned showed nothing but compassion. Julia's complexion, green, even _after_ vomiting, spoke a thousand words. Her returning smile, a bit uneasy, nausea and the mix of the potent, and yet unsettled, issue between them.

This particular Sunday, Julia did not feel up to making Confession herself, so she stayed with William Jr. outside the Church while William waited in the long, but quickly-moving, line to receive the sacrament of reconciliation _. She hoped William would not think that she had chosen NOT to give Confession because, now that she was pregnant, she intended to no longer stay with him in practicing his religion. After all, they had been clear between themselves back when she started joining him that she was doing so in order to help with their adopting a child from a Catholic orphanage – the Catholic institutions in many ways their last ditch effort, with all other attempts having ended in failure._ A sigh escaped as she considered it. _"He saw I was truly sick, surely that would account for my decision… And besides, my even keeping this pregnancy is so unresolved, it would make sense I would want to avoid…_ Suddenly a quick flash flickered, Julia remembering her telling William last night that it was _**her body**_ , the memory still painful.With another sigh she concluded _, "It should be alright,"_ she concluded. She felt William Jr.'s little hand in hers and took heart in it.

As their night before out on the front porch had already revealed, it was a warm day for the middle of the winter, and she used the opportunity to teach their little one some botany, taking advantage of the abundant Northern White Cedar trees used to landscape the pathway along the Church walls. As she walked along with her son, she found herself becoming enthralled by an association with the trees playing out inside her head – " _these are the trees that make thujone,"_ her internal thinking said, _"The same substance in absinthe_ …" And, _**OH, my, my, my,**_ what a wonderful memory their first kiss was, that splendid night with William's picnic and his absinthe. Her brain replayed it again for the umpteenth time, _so real she felt it in her fingers, as they had slipped so enticingly, so intimately, into his hair… that gorgeous, gorgeous tiny smile on his lips, almost just a twitch_ _ **, and she knew he liked it**_ _… and then after that magnificent smile the slightest, slightest, tilt of his head, with such a subtle lean towards her, torqueing the gravity all around, and the soaring of every drop of life force in her body towards him… she was so in love, so in love, that it ached, and it titillated, and it erupted wild, wild euphoria out from her core to her toes, rippling and humming with anticipation._

She brought William Jr. close to one of the trees, the pleasant odor of pine tingling the nostrils. She pointed out the unique leaves pine trees had, very thin and pointy, and they stay green all year… Occasionally, members of the congregation huddled around listening in as they slowly walked out of the Church. She explained some of the interesting adaptations of evergreen trees, like having waxy needles instead of wide, flat leaves allowing them to conserve water in the winter when the ground is frozen, and their shape helps the branches not to break under the burdens of large amounts of pilled-on snow. She was saying to a small group, "And if it does get warm enough for water to be available, like today, then the green needles can do photosynthesis even in the wintertime. The other trees can't do that…" As Mrs. Kitchen joined up for the mini-lecture, she concluded, "All in all, they're such hearty, admirable trees, really."

William Jr. tugged at her skirt and pointed up.

Mrs. Kitchen read the child's meaning first, declaring, "Oh, he wants a pinecone, I think."

Inside the Church, William eventually made it into the confessional box. He was reassured that the shadowy outline of the man he could see on the other side of the confessional screen was the one he trusted most – Father Clements rather than Father Barrows. He breathed easier, for at least he would be able to relax about not having to hide the heaviness of his emotions, yet he reminded himself that he would still need to keep the secret concealed from his words.

He told Father Clements about his fears, fears of losing Julia, without telling specifically what it was that he worried was endangering her life – _**without telling**_ that she was pregnant again, and that the scarring in her cervix from her abortion meant she would die if she attempted natural childbirth, and so because of that that she would have to have a Cesarean section in order to live through birthing the child that was growing inside of her womb as he spoke, and that the extra scarring in her uterus from her first Cesarean section with William Jr. meant that the this child's delivery would be more complicated… and that his decision, as a result of the insurmountable and unimaginable fear of facing life without her, was to ask her to have another abortion _ **, without telling all that**_ , without asking for forgiveness for _**being willing**_ to kill his own child to save his Julia. He had veiled his current struggle with his conscience underneath a previous one he had worked with Father Clements at great lengths over, his willingness to sin – to kill, over having had been willing to kill James Gillies in order to save her, to save his son and to save her. Julia had helped him see, back when he was battling his demons over pulling the trigger with the intention to kill Gillies, that protecting his family was a form of self-defense. It had helped back then, he believed it helped again now. He stepped out of the confession box feeling lighter for having had been able to repent for his willingness to kill another for her, and it helped.

He placed his homburg on his head and headed for the bright doorway. His mood was contemplative, and his self-reflections led him back to his earlier thoughts, _that it had to remain a secret, and that, if he was able to convince Julia to have an abortion…_

William shook his head unconsciously as an aversive curl appeared on his face, such thoughts about seeking something as deplorable as having his wife abort his child were so disturbing that he thought he might end up throwing-up his breakfast… just like Julia had earlier.

Still, his figuring began again as he squinted into the Sun and spotted a small group down the path, and then he identified his wife and his son as part of it. " _If they decided that she should have an abortion, then it was best that they have Isaac do it_ _ **before**_ _people could tell she was pregnant…"_ he reasoned in his head, walking up to them, trying to catch Julia's eye.

William leaned off to his left to better see Julia through the three or four other women's heads. " _Easier because she's so tall,"_ he noticed.

" _Oh, something wasn't right..." She looked upset,_ the internal alarm alerted. From another side of his head came a possible explanation, " _Perhaps it's still her morning sickness…"_ though the thought was quickly rejected it as he registered exactly what it was that Mrs. Clarkston was saying to Julia once he had gotten close enough to overhear.

"At least your having to rush out of the service was for a good reason, though…" Mrs. Clarkston smiled and then made her meaning clear, "So then, when are you and your husband expecting the stork?"

 _Now William's expression matched his wife's…_

 _Their secret was out! If Mrs. Clarkston knew she was pregnant, then everybody in the congregation would know she was pregnant…_

William arrived just as Julia responded, "Well, we are not certain…"

And Mrs. Kitchen interrupted her, not a bit dissuaded, "The detective must be thrilled!"

And so suddenly, William felt the wallop of having five sets of eyes on him as everyone single one of the ladies, and his beautiful wife, and even his little son, turned to look at him.

"Well of course," he said, then swallowed down the pressure, "Um… Um, if that's…"

William Jr. bound out of the lower branches of the trees happy to see his father, his little hands full of treasures gleaned from the trees. "Daddy! Piecones!" he declared, opening his hands to show the marble-sized brown, woody, coniferous seeds he had collected.

Julia stepped over to William's side, and William wrapped an arm around her as she improved upon her son's name for the artifacts. "Pi _ **N**_ econes," she said.

"Those are to make baby trees," William explained, taking one from William Jr.'s hand and holding it up to inspect it. "This one looks like it'll make a fine tree somed…"

Mrs. Aubrey interjected, steering the conversation back to the juicier subject of discovering that Dr. Ogden was pregnant, "It's a miracle, most certainly… A blessing from God. I'd say it was because you started to come to Mass, doctor," she nodded to Julia, then turned to her friends.

"Of course, you're right Janice!" Mrs. Clarkston gushed.

The women re-focused, not on the handsome detective, or the adorable Murdoch child, or the details of the science of pinecones, but instead on the doctor's lower abdomen.

Julia instinctively put a hand to her womb, protecting the little life within from all the x-ray vision. She glanced to William, trying with all her might to apologize. She would try for some wiggle-room, "Perhaps it's simply that I'm coming down with something?" she suggested.

Mrs. Kitchen considered aloud, lifting a hand to her neck and poking around at the glands in her throat, "I've been feeling a bit peaked myself lately. I hope there's not a bug going around."

"Oh, come now Mildred," Mrs. Clarkston complained to Mrs. Kitchen, "A sore throat…" the nosy woman scoffed, then asked, "Have you had to run out in the middle of Mass to…" But there Mrs. Clarkston suddenly halted, unsure of how to proceed with the word _'puke'_ seeming impolite and stuck at the end of her tongue.

"Simply not," Mrs. Aubrey rushed in, "The good doctor here is pregnant, and it's a miracle, a miracle from God I tell you," she insisted.

All three women clamped their lips together and nodded, eyes staring down at Julia's belly. They were in agreement.

"I'm sure you had been praying for it…" one of the women said.

"Or perhaps had even given up hope, what with all that adoption mess and everything," another said.

Mrs. Kitchen clasped her hands together in front of her chest and showered a big smile, "To be so blessed. It is truly lovely." The older woman looked at William Jr.

The little boy's big brown eyes caught the familiar face, the woman who gave him and his Daddy haircuts, then darted up to his mother's eyes…

So quickly her reassuring nod came.

Mrs. Kitchen smiled at the child, then looked back up at his parents. "A little brother or sister would be a treat for him," she added.

"Oh yes," the women all agreed again.

Another parishioner walked up to the group and the attention moved off of the Murdoch's for a moment.

Julia leaned over to William and said clandestinely in his ear, "I'm sorry William. They just… _**guessed**_."

His big sigh told of the effect the whole ordeal was having on him, but he was trying.

She tried to lighten the mood, playing, "I do doubt Mrs. Kitchen has same _'bug…"_ she giggled.

Such joy when the look of mischief covered William's face. "I suppose you haven't heard then…"

Julia lifted an eyebrow, interested.

"Mrs. Kitchen is being courted. Perhaps it _**is**_ the same," he said, pulling off sounding smug.

 _It reminded her of the time he teased her about her being too old for Leslie Garland, and then he marched away, so deliciously cocky, trying to keep the smile off of his face as he walked his bicycle out ahead of her._

"Courted?" she exclaimed, eyes wide, working to keep her voice down, "That's lovely. Who?"

"Ned Dempsey," William answered, gesturing Julia's eyes over to the Church front gate where the older man was patiently waiting.

Julia giggled, "Well, perhaps then…"

And they both fell into guilty laughter.

And through his chuckling, William spurted out, "Now, that _**would**_ be quite a miracle."

And Julia bent over a little to laugh harder. Her hand rushed up to cover her mouth.

They recovered, and Julia glanced over at the, now even larger, group of adults nearby. "Perhaps we should go," she offered.

Her louder voice, perhaps the change in tempo of their conversation, drew attention back their way.

As William watched William Jr. scurrying about behind the trees, he suggested, "I think he would like the Park. It's a warm enough day. We could probably even climb some trees…"

Another woman overheard him and gasped, "Certainly not your wife – in her condition!"

Before William could respond…

Julia's irritation evident as she rolled her eyes at him and prodded, "In our Sunday best, William…"

 _There was a huff._

"Really, what were you thinking?" she chided. Then she decided the whole discussion was moot anyway, "Besides, William Jr. will need a nap soon. We'd best go home…" she overruled.

And with her words barely out, little William Jr. rushed out from behind the trees to insert his opinion – LOUDLY. "Warm nuff climb trees," he quoted his father at his mother.

 _Something about way he said it… forewarned, made every one of the adults present tilt their heads, their extra-listening skills triggered. They could see the writing on walls… a toddler tantrum alert had been given…_

Immediately Julia's eyes scolded poor William.

The handsome man's expression saying, " _Uh-oh."_ And in his head, he remembered that _one of the major clues that he had had that she was probably pregnant was her tendency to be… crotchety…_

He would try to divert the child. "Little Man, we can have lots of fun at home… We can play ' _build a fort out of pillows…'_ before your nap. You'd like tha…"

"Warm nuff climb trees," the two-year-old stomped. "No go home for nap!"

"Well done, William," Julia snipped sarcastically.

The detective blew out some of the pressure through his pursed lips and then clamped his lips together tight, thinking. _This was a conundrum…_

"We have trees in our woods at home," he practically jumped with the brilliant solution. " _It was going to work! It was going to work!"_ his head trumpeted. William leaned down and scooped up his son, _saving the day, he was sure_. "We can climb trees at home…" he stopped himself from saying ' _before you take a nap,'_ knowing that that would surge the tantrum that threatened.

"Do you want to keep your pinecones?" he asked his son in his arms as he reoriented his body towards the Church gate.

Julia huffed and turned to the other adults.

"I guess we'll be going then," she said, then gave a polite nod.

William Jr. could be heard upping the ante… _the eggshells under his father's feet crunching as the Murdoch's walked away,_ "Climb trees _**AND**_ play fort," the child stipulated.

Too quiet for the small crowd to make out, the detective's wife grumbled something or other at him.

All in all though, it could have been worse, worse than Julia telling William that since it was _HIS_ brilliant idea, _HE_ could be the one in charge of putting their son down for his nap, _"after all that stimulation you promised."_

) (

William and Julia lie together on their living room floor, underneath the puffy walls and the cottony ceiling made of all the myriad of pillows and blankets and sheets, some colorful cushions from their sofas, others from all the beds in the household. William Jr. had left them alone for a moment as he went downstairs to the playroom to get Blanco, "so he could see the fort."

William rolled over her in their temporary seclusion and found himself feeling aroused. _She had been a good sport in the end,_ cheered them on while they crunched through the snow, the white, cold impediment reaching up above little William Jr.'s knees, to a tree at the very edge of their woods, then climbed it rather easily, William declaring the lack of trouble was due to the wintertime-tree's lack of leaves. Then she even joined in the roughhousing and fun of the building of the pillow fort _. Now, she lay under him, out of breath, so beautiful…_

It did not take much to light Julia's flame these days, and he saw the wave of lustful desire flow over her face. It shot straight to his groin like a bullet.

Assertively she pushed him over, rolling him onto his back. "We forgot two pillows," she teased from above him as she reached up to unbutton her blouse. No corset under it, she was dressed for relaxation at home on Sunday afternoon.

 _William's world spun so fast he was unable to speak… couldn't even breathe…_

The fabric of her partially unbuttoned blouse clung tightly to the bottom portion of her cleavage as she leaned over him, allowing for the scrumptiously pendulous round curves of her to taunt him from above.

Carnal jungle-heat flared out of his nostrils.

She leaned down lower.

 _He wanted her_ … squishy, magnificent, flesh in his mouth. His hands, one on each side pushed into her bosom, jiggly, and marshmallowy perfection rippling and succumbing within his fingers.

Lower…

He opened his mouth and she moved that final millimeter and heaven erupted. _Mmm, she was so good, so good,_ as he put his mouth all over her. _Mmm, the taste of her, the smell of her, spilling into him_ , flooring him.

Toddler footsteps up the stairs!

Julia lifted away, with William following, reaching, stretching to extend the pleasure. His eyes caught a glimpse of the shine of the wetness on her skin as she hurried to pinch the tiny button into its hole, then the next, and she giggled, and he tried to find the floor, to still the room.

)

Later, the little one finally asleep, the hour having been too late for his nap, and William already blamed for the awful night ahead as the baby's bedtime would be messed up as a result of his mistake, William and Julia found themselves stepping into their bedroom for a 'talk.' William was expecting a reprimand, a lecture, but Julia had lovemaking on her mind, and she was flirting.

William was playing hard to get. "I wanted to lift some weights," he said.

 _His shirt buttons were dropping like flies._

Julia's eyes were thoroughly engaged in lusting after his muscly, manly, chest as she told him, "Oh, I do so like the results of those workouts of yours, William," and her hands covered and massaged and cherished his pectoral muscles which were holding firm against her attentions, "But…" she said, leaning close to his ear, _such that he could feel the humid heat of her breath on him,_ "I had a different kind of workout in mind."

Conflicted, William lifted his face up to the ceiling seeking internal strength. "Julia, I won't have time for both. He won't sleep that long," he complained. "And I'll need a shower afterwards…"

"Ooh," _Julia felt a wrenching twist in her womb, slamming it into him_ , "I do so love it in the shower, William, hmm? All that slippery soap, and that hard, cold, tile wall behind me…" She kissed him – _passionately, very passionately._

 _He really didn't stand a chance… She had him, she completely, and entirely, had him…_

Taking stock of the situation at hand, both of them thought in their heads that, under the whamming of the waves of lust – with the sheer force of the unbearable need, they would never make it until _after_ he had worked out, and certainly not until they could get into the shower together _after_ that… _or even to the shower_ _at all_ , for the Earth was shaking underneath their feet with such a quaking that it would surely swallow them up right there and then.

Ruggedly, William switched their positions, pinning Julia against the wall… And he let all his inhibitions go, thoroughly going to town on her, kissing, kissing and kissing, and rubbing and squeezing all over, every, luscious, inch, of her, utterly and savagely crushed because he felt her feeling him, aroused and ready, through his trousers.

"William," her breathy cry gushed out, begged, pleaded.

" _On the bed,_ " his brain commanded, _he would have her on the bed_. He swept her off of her feet, and then tossed her down onto the mattress. Climbed on top of her, and the Murdoch's made love, _wild and rough_ , storming into each other with every single drop of themselves until the roaring cascade of the waterfall plunged them, full force, into the wet, sweetness of their love, where afterwards they floated, and they rocked together in the delectable ripples.

"My, _THAT_ was good," Julia finally spoke.

"Mmm," he agreed. " _Indeed_ ," he seconded the motion in his head, not yet able to produce actual words.

 _It was quite nice, this pregnancy thing, in some ways, anyway._

)

Julia must have fallen asleep after they made wild and passionate love that afternoon. Through the fogginess of not-yet-awake, she was aware she was in their bed, and that it was late afternoon… _"Oh yes, on Sunday,"_ her memories flowed back as she approached wakefulness.

William Jr. called again from their bedroom doorway – unable to do as he customarily did – knock – because the door had been left opened, "Mommy?"

" _William isn't here,"_ she thought, still groggy, as she answered her son. "I'm here Little One. Come on in and cuddle with your Mommy."

 _She wouldn't have to ask him twice_ , the boy was there in a shot.

"Your Daddy must be downstairs working out with his weights," she explained as the small boy nestled into her body and she hugged him close.

"Muscles," the little one said, his voice muffled by his somewhat buried location.

"Yes," she answered, giving him an extra squeeze and a quick rock, "Yes, your Daddy has lovely muscles." Julia slipped her fingers into her tiny son's hair and began to rub and scratch and stroke him adoringly. "How about a handy-dandy scalp massage?" she asked, already granting him the pleasure.

Soon after that, William came up. He had taken off his shirt, and wore only his baseball pants. There was a towel wrapped around his neck, and his skin glistened with the wetness of his workout.

William approached and took a seat on the edge of the bed next to Julia. Both Julia and William Jr. sat up, Julia resting her back against the headboard of the bed, tucking William Jr. under an arm, and then the child snuggled near. For a moment, he was happy there, but he wanted his freedom soon enough.

The toddler pushed up and then lifted his arms to his sides with bent elbows and tried with all his might to produce bulging biceps while giving out a fierce growl.

Playing the well-known game between them, William did the same, reflecting the exact same gesture back to his son, letting the small boy see his future as if in a mirror.

 _Julia Ogden surely noticed those robust bulges._

William Jr. pushed up onto his knees, crawling over his mother. "Wanna touch?" he asked.

While William considered it, Julia pulled her son back into his little nest at her side. "Daddy's all sweaty and yucky," she explained. And unexpectedly, a part of her brain barreled down a path to a memory, so delightful, of the two of them being amorous in the secret passageway in the dining room, and Julia teasing William mercilessly, calling him by a new, and wonderfully William-annoying, pet name – " _Wilyummy… ,"_ she remembered it with a smile. _My goodness, William had resisted that one…"_

Without realizing it, Julia's eyes had traveled down William's chest, and they were blatantly soaking in the hunky sight of him. She hadn't noticed he was looking right at her, staring, waiting for her to discover that, once again, she had been caught. _With a little zing_ , the awareness came.

She glanced up with a startled rush.

But then, she simply and unabashedly let her eyes go back down to peruse the contours of him. " _Mmm –mm-mm_ ," she moaned to herself in her head, feeling the flicker, the heat, flooding through her in that one, deepest, spot.

Going on inside William's head, he felt a surge of cockiness, thinking to himself _that that look on her face was worth every single grunt of his workouts._ Reality landed, _the baby was right there_ , and William said, a twinge of disappointment in his tone, "I need a shower," giving Julia the hint that he was asking her to watch William Jr. a while longer.

And inside Julia's head she remembered the delicious taunting and lusting between them before they had given into their more primal urges earlier, her mind showing her _the same fantasy she had had then, of them showering together, complete with the sensation of all that creamy slipperiness of their soapy skin gliding and sliding all over each other, and all that steam…_

It took effort to lean against the torque of the pull, the effort reveled as she jerked her head up off his body and met his eyes. Then, even worse, she needed to clear her throat, swallow, to speak. "Too bad it will have to be alone," she replied, about his taking a shower.

And WHAM, William's memory barreled back to her carnal, hungry advances earlier, and he heard her, all over again, in his head, " _Ooh, I do so love it in the shower, William, hmm? All that slippery soap, and that hard, cold, tile wall behind me…"_ and he felt the blood run out of him on direct route to his groin all over again.

Julia smiled at him, followed by the slightest, flirtatious, shy, dropping of her eyes.

 _She knows!_ It hit him with a panic, and then William Murdoch full-on blushed.

 _And, my God, did Julia Ogden love it!_

Chuckling he said, "I do quite enjoy this pregnancy thing."

She exhaled, hot, strong. "Yes," she admitted.

Jr.'s big brown eyes full of curiosity, for he was remembering, connecting, just now what his father had said to his mother, those ladies at the Church too, and so he asked, "What's "peg Nancy?"

 _Whoosh_ , his parents' eyes rushed to each other, and his father's eyebrows lifted up wide and worried. _Of all the people in the world he did NOT want to know about this…_ And suddenly, he realized the huge scope of his request of her, the child in her womb that he had asked for her to abort was not just his son or daughter, it was William's Jr.'s little brother or little sister.

Julia swallowed and yielded to the pressure to answer, finding a way to speak the truth and also avoid the quagmire and the potential pain. She sat up and taller in their bed and turned to face William Jr. directly. William's presence behind her seemed to bolster her… and warm her. "You know how your Daddy and I have been…" she paused trying to decide whether to use his two-year-old lingo or the more adult version. Julia glanced back at William. He still looked terrified, but sweetly, bravely, he nodded. _William Murdoch trusted her completely_. "You know that your Daddy and I have been trying to 'a-dot a baby?" she waited for William Jr. to indicate he understood…

"Yes Mommy," he replied, tweaking her heart with his cuteness.

"Well, ' _ **pregnancy**_ ' is kind of like that. It's just a different way for us to have a baby. You see?"

William Jr. gave her a big nod and then said, "A-dot-a girl – like Alice," he filed his request.

"We'll have to see," his mother said, "We'll have to see."

)) ((

) * (

The Tiger that William was presented with this time was extinct, a saber-toothed beast from far, far, back in time. But its power was only _**more**_ fierce because of this. Deep-seated things,

ancient,

central things,

 _primordial_ _and first_ ,

things at the core of one's self,

like religion and childhood,

they shape us from the inside out.

Considering this, it was even more phenomenal that this time, this time, William chose the Lady over the Tiger. William's faith, his upbringing, had taught him how absolutely unthinkable it was to even consider aborting an innocent unborn child – abominable and wholly unacceptable if that same unborn child is your own. It was a sin that most assuredly would amount to an eternity in Hell, at least it would do so without receiving God's mercy and forgiveness. And yet, it was through this same faith, this same upbringing, which he had come to know that a man, a _good_ man, must protect those he loves. Yes, he had been willing to kill James Gillies, in order to keep her safe, to keep her safe and to keep their child safe from the monster, from the devil inside that horrid and disturbed man. The decision in that instance, unlike this one, with William choosing to confront, head-on, the Tiger of hell, had made him feel stronger rather than weaker.

But this battle, this one with the Tiger of whether or not he would be willing to accept the consequences of choosingto commit the worst of sins, and willingly take the life of his own child, the battle with this beast remained unchosen. And most importantly, in _**choosing NOT to repent**_ , and thus not to acknowledge the power of the Tiger of Hades, to ignore the oldest, most ancient, primeval, and huge Saber-Toothed Tiger of all of time, meant that William had chosen to put it off, to accept God's ruling, should it come. He had NOT faced off with the Tiger this time. For although he _was_ willing to kill his unborn child to save his one true love, he had chosen to do so in such a way as to push aside the grave battle with the consequences. The decision NOT to confront his soul and his faith and his eternal fate in the confessional had been made. That Tiger, it would likely come for him some day – but this day, this day, William chose the Lady.

))) (((


	19. 19: The Tiger RoseT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 19: The Tiger Rose_T

He showed up unexpectedly at her University class with a single rose in his hand and a wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth, _'I'm sorry'_ expression on his face. The class was finished for the day, but it seemed all of the young students, _each of them quite noticeably female_ , had remained afterwards – eight or so of them in total. Julia was up in the front of the small lecture hall, at the podium, her besotted students all gathered around wanting more. Every single one of the young ladies' eyes followed their professor's glance across the room to see what had caught her attention…

The answer stood there, displaying an uneasy twitch upon suddenly becoming the center of attention. Detective William Murdoch, the male half of the _storybook couple_ , 'Toronto's Favorite Couple' – as they had been coined by the press – that is at least back before the adopting-a-baby-so-the-selfish-wife-can-keep-working mess, and then the dreaded Body-Dumper case, had sullied their good name.

Hope shown on his face from where he gazed in from the doorway, looking handsome as ever.

 _Julia had managed to forget, for a little while anyway. But the sight of William standing there brought it all back. They had had a fight… in the center of it their little toddler son, and swirling all around him, a parental disagreement about how to best toilet train the child. The little one had wanted his mother to see his success before it was flushed away. William had told him that that was not necessary. William Jr. had begun to fuss and whine about it, and then William had decided to solve the problem by flushing it away, spewing the two-year-old into a tantrum…_

One of Julia's students gushed something about how sweet it was, "him showing up here, with a flower and everything."

And then Julia mumbled it out, followed by a sickly, zing of a feeling gurgling up inside of her upon realizing she had probably said it too loudly, regretting instantly that it had been overheard, "Probably just doesn't want to spend another night on the couch."

Two of her students, Miss Cranston and Miss Roy, both near enough to her to distinctly make out what it was that their professor had said under her breath, jolted upright with surprise and shot their eyes to each other, intrigued, and with a guilty glee in their titillated smiles.

"Excuse me, ladies," Julia said.

As she walked away, she heard Annie Cranston say, the larger group huddling around her, "If he were my husband, he'd never spend a night on the couch…" and Julia rolled her eyes and grumbled to herself about how unrealistic such naïve young women could be.

William pinched his lips together, giving her his admitting-it face.

And in response to it, there was a track inside of her head that wondered why… _why William would be the one to apologize_ , for their fight had been as much, if not even more, her fault as it had been his. Unsettled in her own mind about it, she dropped her eyes down to his offering. _NOT a dozen roses_ … she noticed. "Why just the one?" she asked him.

He leaned, tilted to her, confiding, "I've known since I first met you, Julia, that you were the _**one**_ for me…"

" _Oh, he could be delightfully winsome_ ," she reminded herself, half-thrilled and half-annoyed.

This particular rose was like none other she had ever seen, and she was certain it had cost him a pretty penny, probably as much as the more traditional dozen that he usually donned when keeping his promise to never stop courting her.

"Why the stripes?" she wondered.

His pause, _too long_ , along with his troubled expression, and she knew that, whatever was happening inside that magnificent brain of his, it was something that he had suddenly felt uncomfortable about – probably something that William himself had not even been quite conscious of up until she had asked him about it, and then her own bright brain rushed to think what it could possibly be, and then she believed she had grasped it, the joy of discovery quickly doused with the hurt of its content. _The tiger-striped flower signified her moodiness as of late, like two distinct and opposing colors within one person,_ and she sighed.

William swallowed, working to find words to explain… _"Stripes... Stripes…?"_ Fortunately, some bubbled up, and, with them, confidence filled him. Thinking she would like his answer, he said, "Rare, and wonderful, and remarkable…" he bowed inward to her and whispered, "Like you."

 _His gesture, his words, the_ _feel_ _of it, reminded of the night at the Ball when he had told her he had seen his future – and that it was her. It had a similar effect on her now._

From the cluster of female students on the other side of the lecture hall, _undoubtedly sharing in their mutual admiring of the doctor's husband_ , Miss Danroy's query called out, "Dr. Ogden, do you think we could have Detective Murdoch teach us a class…"

Annie Cranston, in her role as an early member of the Murdoch Appreciation Society, _notably the young woman having had been encouraged, upon meeting Dr. Ogden, into becoming a pathologist herself,_ reminded them all, "Oh yes! Detective Murdoch has such famous and ingenious techniques!"

" _I'd sure like to learn his techniques_ ," more than one of the lovestruck young women lustfully thought to themselves inside their pretty heads.

"It would be wonderful!" another gushed.

Julia rolled her eyes, and somehow William just knew that this, too, would be a bone of contention between them. He hurried to wiggle out of it.

 _Unfortunately, he was so deliciously gorgeous while doing it…_

"Ladies," he gave a charming bow to them, "I am sure Dr. Ogden is much more qualified than I at…"

 _A surge of worry, for he heard her huff next to him…_

But then, Julia Ogden's mind played for her a mirage of cascading memories of William Murdoch's brilliant moments _– the rotting liver stench in his office walls, the result of an experiment in hatching Junebug pupae found on the body, and his figuring out that their 'wrong' timing for hatching meant that they had been, and thus the body had been, kept on ice, and leading him to find the killer… And his showing up in the morgue with a way to test blood to see if it was from an animal – a dog in this case – or from a human, ultimately proving that his father was not the murderer and freeing him to go out west to reunite with William's half-brother Jasper… And William taking her to his back room of his office and dropping a blob of heavy modelling clay and a big book into her hands, suggesting that she use the 'Hess method' of 'seeing' a face, so smart, thinking of a way to make a replica of a face from a skull…_

"We shall see," she gave. "Perhaps…"

Her unexpected utterance seemed to suddenly suck all of the air out of the room, _the silence_ , for no one, _least of all Julia herself_ , had expected her to agree to having her good-looking, overly-ogled husband stand in front of a bunch of easily-smitten young ladies and… _impress_ them for three hours.

Julia turned back to her husband and accepted his nervous nod. Her eyes dropped down onto his unique flower, still waiting in his hand.

He cleared his throat and said, "The flower shop called it a 'Tiger Rose."

"Of course," she said, feeling herself softening to him, "because of the stripes."

William nodded and lifted it to offer it to her once more.

Julia took it and brought it up to that tender space between her lips and her nose, felt the lushness of its petals and breathed in the sweet scent of it. " _Lovely,"_ she thought, _"I guess the rose breeders didn't give up fragrance for beauty,"_ her more scientific mind figured.

"It's delightful William," she tried to whisper her message to him.

As she passed the stem from her one hand into the other, a thorn pricked into her flesh. "Ouch," she said maintaining their intimate whisper in response to the sting. "It has claws, and it scratches like a tiger too, I see," she joked.

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth, _for that point, too, alluded to some similarities between the flower and his wife,_ and she felt her giggle bubbling up inside. It took effort, but she kept it at bay.

 _With the playfulness blooming between them, a part of William's awareness was tugged to the physical, in more ways than one. In the small, scratched places on his back, he sensed keenly, in the flesh under his shirt, hidden away from view by his suit vest, and his suit jacket, and his winter coat, the tingly sting of the spots where Julia's fingernails had dug into him…_ And his brain hollered out _NOT TO…_ but it was too late, and his mind replayed it, the knee-buckling memory from two nights ago, _making love to her in the shower, and WHAM, it was powerful, the flood of it._

The students approached. And the heat of their invading presence spurred Julia into wanting to get away before they started pressing… pressing for her attention, or worse, for _HIS_ , probing her for hints as to what topics would be on the upcoming exam, pressing her for letters of reference for lab positions over the summer…

She glanced into William's eyes. "I just have a few things to do in my office…"

He nodded, switched his hat over to his other hand.

She expected him to follow her, but she heard the young ladies start to hover as she turned…

Miss Delroy asked him, "What types of things would you expect to cover… um, detective…"

Julia… William… and each of the other ladies as well, caught the movement, Miss Delroy's eyes dropping down and widening as they took in the look of the detective's… lower parts.

Julia rolled her eyes…

"…when you give us our lecture," Miss Delroy finished her question, her eyes still down on him.

Julia couldn't help herself, she huffed, and immediately started to storm out, chin up, arms pumping at her sides. Only two steps into it, though, she reminded herself to be the grown-up and slowed down, lowered the tempo, tried to simply nonchalantly walk away… every cell in her body focused behind her, wondering, hoping, praying, that he would follow.

"I…uh," William generally unable to be impolite, responded, "Well… uh, I'll have to think about it." He clamped his lips together, an attempt to apologize for his being brusque, before he said, popping his homburg onto his head, "Ladies," and nodded, tipping his hat to them…

And then the detective took his leave, his fast pace exhibiting his desire to catch up with his wife.

There was a comment, _not meant for him to hear…_

 _All he could make out was the few words, "rear-end of him…"_ followed by a flutter of embarrassed giggles.

The detective now out of earshot, Annie Cranston said, "Believe me girls, you don't know the half of it – you should see him with his shirt _OFF_ …"

A myriad of gasps filled the air.

"As if you…" one of the bunch called her on it.

 _Oh, so smug_ , her reply, "The Murdoch's Halloween Party, his costume… But, I must say, Dr. Ogden looked mighty… let's just say, she looked quite GOOD herself."

Florence Delroy, as she often did, found Annie to be irritating, and so she minimized the thrill her rival was offering the group, saying, "We all saw the photo in the newspaper, Annie…"

"Yes. Yes, that's true," one of the group added, "Dr. Ogden, and the detective, and their adorable little son – Oh, and that invention of his, that moving Halloween monster-thingy really looked like…"

Another woman interrupted, "They were some sort of sea creatures, weren't they?"

Miss Cranston won the race to name the characters of their Halloween costumes, "King Neptune and his wife Salacia…" she piped up, then devilishly adding, "How salacious!"

)

Once they got up into her office, Julia closed the door behind them, using the previously set precedent to signify that she was meant to be left alone.

William said something about science, sensing the topic was safer common ground for them, suggesting aloud that he could use his UV photography technique, and its ability to reveal hidden bruises on a corpse – or anyone for that matter – as something to lecture to her students about. Julia agreed that it was good idea, albeit the technique was connected to the only case he did NOT solve last year – the Body Dumper Case.

With his Tiger Rose as a way for her _not_ to look at him, _to give herself some time to think_ , she busied herself finding a flask for the extraordinary flower, and then happily parked it on her desk, sans water for now. For his part, she noticed, William unbuttoned and removed his coat and his maroon winter scarf. _She knew they would need to talk about the fight,_ and Julia Ogden had never been one to avoid challenges. " _No time like the present_ ," she thought to herself.

Sitting at her desk, she turned to watch him. He had been distracting himself by reading her diplomas on her wall. He turned to face her as well, sensing she was ready. A part of her inside smiled, for it was William who said, "I suppose we should talk about last night."

"Yes," she answered him, "I think that would be a good idea."

He would never know it, but Julia, too, felt a flip of fear inside her gut. There was a bookcase against the wall opposite her desk, and William leaned against it, settling in for their talk.

Julia cut right to the crux of the matter, to what had happened _**to their son**_ as a result of their actions… William's, at first, on his own, and then theirs, combined. She had an advantage here, being a trained psychotherapist – trained by Freud himself in Vienna.

"As a toddler, William," she started, "William Jr. is at the anal stage of his development. He needs to feel mastery… to gain a sense of self-confidence in his ability to accomplish things. Did your father see you as accomplished, William – Was he proud of the things you did, did he celebrate them?"

 _Suddenly Julia realized she was in danger of going way too fast. William had improved vastly over the years at analyzing his own and the psychological states of others, but this… your own child… and relationships with your parents when you were a child, were most assuredly sticky territory, in any situation. And the situation was loaded right now, being on the heels of a fight._

The unexpected question had come at him so quickly that he frowned before he could take control of his face. And then, once he'd gotten it, his face going blank, he had to fight with all his might not to follow his instincts and close up completely. Already feeling it had taken him too long to respond _(a lesson he learned incredibly poignantly back when he took too long, when he could not respond to her question about her sterility before she went to away, left him to go to Buffalo)_ he hurried to reply, muttering, "Some. Some he thought were … strange, I guess," followed by his signature wrinkling at the corner of his mouth.

 _My, oh my, did he worry that she would ask him about his own toilet training as a child. He would have to have said that he did not remember – because he didn't. And sitting there at this moment with her, a part of him worried that she would not believe him. He prepared in case she asked, searched backwards in his mind. He did know one thing… it was unlikely that his father was not even around. If memory served (and in William Murdoch's case it probably did), his father was out sailing around the world._

Julia furiously wanted to get the pressure off of him, feeling bad for having put him in such an uncomfortable spot. "I'm sorry, William," she gave. "Freud's theories are difficult to talk about on a personal level. I understand that," she offered.

He asked, relieved, "What's the next stage… after this one?"

Inside, she giggled, and her eyes resisted bulging. "Oedipal," she answered him.

William pursed his lips and blew out the pressure. His eyebrows rose up high and he said, "That's the one with incest and scratching your eyes out…?"

Unable to hold back, Julia giggled, a part of her thoroughly delighted. Truth be told, she felt such a pang of love for him that it made her happy through and through. She knew in that moment that they would be alright, that they would work this out. And as was often the case with these two, the connection would be some learning or another, for both she and William fascinated with the science and the workings and the phenomena of the world.

She smiled and told him, "The oedipal stage has some issues with fathers and sons, and jealousy over the mother, yes. But we don't have to worry about that right now, hmm?" she asked him.

 _Adorable, he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her._

Getting them back on track, Julia said, "William, I would like you to read… um, to learn more about Freud's theories on development. I think it's important. And, let's agree…" her beautiful eyes held firmly to hers, "that if I'm home when William Jr. masters something – particularly if he does so with what we're working on with him at this stage, with his toilet training, I DO want you to call me to see and to celebrate his success with the two of you. And I'll call you."

William nodded, lips clamped tight.

Julia went on, adding, "Rewards for doing this well are what are needed, in order for William Jr. to become capable and competent and productive as an individual."

William nodded again, and inside her head Julia warned herself not to fall into a lecture.

"This… Well, it may not be easy. And we'll have to be careful not to make too much of it… to put even more stress on him. But we can do it," she encouraged herself as much as William. She pushed her chair away from her desk and stood.

His eyes darkened, and his breathing changed. He had become a bit captured by her, by how beautiful he found her to be, noticing her complexion, creamy and pink, so smooth, so perfect, and those eyes of hers, blue… mesmerizing… magnetic, and so amazingly big, and off at the edges, those fiery wisps of her hair, and it all made William's heart skip a beat.

She stepped closer to him, "And, I have to say William, I should not have taken my concerns to the level that I did, either, last night. I was wrong, to get so upset. I should have remembered that you did not know the significance of what was happening on the psychological level, that you would not expect William Jr.'s reaction to YOUR taking control, and flushing away his… his proof that he had done it… his success in a sense. And certainly, I should not have let it affect OUR relationship. I am sorry…" She was very close now, the quietness of her voice attesting to her nearness, "And… I really regret that I made you sleep on the couch. And the flower is truly beautiful. Thank you for…" Her eyes dropped away, unsure what to say. _"Thank you for putting up with me, pulling me back to my senses, loving me…"_

William stepped the final inch, intimately closer, and began his mating ritual in his most usual way, taking one of her curls in his fingers. "I did miss you…" He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her.

Julia's internal flame erupted. She would never know why, why in this moment she had blurted this out, for she had never told him this particular truth before. The words flew out of her mouth before being caught by her brain, examined, analyzed. "William Murdoch, have I ever told you that you are the most gorgeous man I have ever laid eyes on?" she flirted, herself stepping deeper into his arms, the smell of him, Chinese spice and _Williamy_ , insensing her deepest core.

 _His insightful brain flickered it in front of his mind's eye, an image of the striking, opposing-colored stripes of the Tiger Rose, and he knew it was her sudden switch to lust that had brought the image to him, his mind adding superimposed images to the flower, one on each stripe of color, her face, so angry at him last night, right next to it, her wanting him so right now…_

Cocky sometimes, he would tease her. "I seem to remember…" he said, as she felt him slip his hand, _so large_ , into the arch of her back behind her, sliding upward, _so firmly_ locking her in, "…you being quite taken with another…, as I remember it was the dashing Neil Catfrey who not so long ago caught your fancy…"

Those magnificent clear blue eyes of hers darted here and there across his face. But then, they settled on his remarkable big brown eyes and then they deepened. She took a deep breath, and she waited for him to do the same, the whole time their eyes stuck, melded, and the love flowed between them and it reminded of the sincerity between them, and when she felt it solid and strong, she replied, "Neil Catfrey reminded me that there were other attractive men in the world besides you, it's true William, but there are none, NONE, that I love so that it makes my heart ache, no one but for you William, for me too, you're the one."

There was a twitch of a smile on his face, feeling the truth of what she said.

"William, no fight over how to parent our child… our children…" she paused, both of them remembering, with their eyes dropping down, to consider the baby growing inside of her, "Nothing will ever change that."

"Good," he said simply. Then he added, "Besides, a modern marriage is impossible without disagreements, no?

His efforts were rewarded with a smile. "I over-reacted… It seems I do that a lot…" she sighed, a bit embarrassed, her eyes dashed off to the side. A tiny wrinkle at the corner of her mouth told that she had admitted something to herself, and when she looked back into his eyes, the look melted him even more. A breath first, she continued her thought, "Yes, I do that a lot these days. And I'm getting a little tired of blaming it on being pregnant." She frowned. "But, despite that, there's a possibility that I am being overprotective, that I am coddling him too much…"

 _William knew he was meant to object, but he did not. His wrinkle told that he would be honest rather than placate. He saw, now, that_ _ **this time**_ _she had had reason to cater to William Jr.'s outburst, to push to give in to the tantruming, it was true, but there had been other times, other times when he believed that her pampering of their son spoiled him, and he feared it would make him weak, lacking in grit and the ability to control himself._

She cupped his cheek. She loved him, even more for that part of him that loved the truth.

"Parenting has its challenges," she said, bringing him to smile.

"That it does," he answered plainly.

"And William, I may know more about psychology, but I'm still learning, too," she gave, gesturing to him with another wrinkle at the edge of her lips. "I am sorry, truly."

His hands slipped into her hair, up deep into the tresses, his manly thumb glancing over her tender ear. He was going to kiss her, and her insides burned with wishing. She felt his breath on her as he said, "Rare and remarkable and beautiful like the Tiger Rose," and he tilted his head and he moved so close and she saw his eyes close away and she closed hers too, lured by the tingling of the aura of him hovering… before their lips touched. Perfectly, he paused, melting her into softness before he filled the space with his warm, amazingly-soft lips. The kiss, long enough for the heat of their breaths to pour out around them, steam sizzling it upwards between them.

 _Oh, there would be no couch-sleeping tonight._

)

William had talked Julia into letting him take her out to her favorite French restaurant for dinner after her class, even though it meant that they would get home too late to tuck William Jr. into bed. They were both happy to have made-up, even more so than usual, because he was leaving for Ottawa in the morning, to advocate for getting his truthilzer admitted as reliable evidence in the courts. They had agreed it was a good time for him to go away – there had not been any murders for weeks, and the monotony was driving William mad.

At the French restaurant, the young woman who served them oohed-and-ahhed over Julia's unique, striped flower, offering to bring a glass of water for it. The Tiger Rose sat in the center of their small table while they dined. The meal had been lovely. They even decided to indulge in dessert. Julia gave him her request for him to order for her when the waitress came back and then excused herself to use the bathroom, pregnancy already affecting her ability to outlast a whole meal, despite the fact that she was not even showing yet. She reminded herself how much harder it would get as the pregnancy progressed, and still, her inner joy trumpeted that it was beyond worth it, it was still phenomenally wonderful, the feeling she had when she remembered that William's child was growing inside of her.

Upon Julia's return, she could just tell, her instincts prickling with suspicion, her astute observations pushing it towards certainty, that the waitress had made a pass at William. She knew her husband, and he was blatantly uncomfortable. She noticed that those big chocolaty eyes of his darted anywhere but at the young woman, and he avoided looking directly at her as well. It was particularly obvious though when the waitress brought them their desserts – William's eyes nearly glued to the table cloth, him not adding a word to the conversation. Although she felt the fury brewing inside of her, she decided to spare him. She would not bring it up, instead she effused about the delicious chocolate mousse, and spoke of his ideas of what subject matter to choose for the lecture that he would give to her students at some, as of yet unspecified, date. Unfortunately, _that_ topic of conversation brought her little relief from her jealousies and insecurities, for it was pitted with her imagining in her head having all those infatuated young female students of hers gushing all over how wonderful, and smart, and handsome he was. Try as she might to push the nagging thoughts away, she felt herself becoming obsessed, and then she thought to herself that it was probably an overreaction again, because she was pregnant, and she stopped herself from letting herself remember the disaster of the OTHER waitress, when she was pregnant with William Jr.

Moving on, she heard herself say to him, grateful that she was pulling off _not_ appearing to be troubled, as she said, as a conclusion, "Well then, we are in agreement. The most innovative technique is using the ultra-violet light for photographing the body, so it should definitely be one of the things you share with them."

"Julia," William's face lit up with an idea, setting up the spark of intrigue, "I think we should write a paper together on it…"

"Or perhaps even a book together someday, William," she delighted with the idea…

The waitress interrupted them, William having already laid out the money atop of the bill. They stopped their conversation and he handed her the money.

And then, then, the brash waitress said to William seductively in French, "Si tu changes d'avis, je suis ici du mardi au vendredi," and William's uneasy reaction reddened his face, and Julia grit her teeth and stuck her jaw up in the air fighting against her inundation of feelings – _angry, hurt, so vilely, vilely jealous,_ her knowing enough French to know that the woman had suggested he meet her here at the restaurant.

William barely managed to get out the words, "Keep the change," his eyes anywhere but on the waitress.

Hiding her disappointment, the woman smiled, glanced at Julia, then left.

"Jesus Christ, William!" Julia protested in a hushed whisper-of-a-yell as the waitress walked away.

"Julia, please," he complained, "The Lord's name..." he reminded her.

"Honestly!" she threatened to steam. "Unbelievable – a WAITRESS… again," she remarked, shaking her head vehemently. _But instantly she saw the discomfort on his face._

She gave out a big sigh. "Don't worry, William. I know you did nothing to invite it…"

His relief filled the space between them, each of them better able to breathe.

He stretched towards her from his side of the table, hoping not to be overheard, "She knew who we are, Julia. Said she had read in the papers that you were pregnant, and… um, she wanted me to know…" he blew out some pressure, "She said she would be…" William needed to clear his throat. He tried again. "She said she wanted me to know she could _help_ … um, if my… if… _my needs"_ he wrinkled his face apologizing, then swallowed nervously, _"_ weren't being met."

"I see," Julia said, becoming furious inside. " _How dare she!?"_ her brain bellowed, " _Is there no honor among women?"_

 _Calm_ , Julia called for calm. Fortunately, with that tiny bit of settling down, a natural curiosity arose in her. She ducked her chin down and looked up at him from her side of the table.

And William prepared for the incoming…

"And what did you say, William… to her proposition?" she nudged at him.

Another pursed-lips exhale, _he was surely feeling it_. He leaned over the table closer to her. "I said that my needs _**were**_ being met," he told her.

 _Lovely, that he could not say it without blushing._

And she pictured it… _William's pause, the woman's question_ _ **too direct**_ _for even HIM to miss her intentions, then he would have clamped his lips together, fighting the urge to say too much._ She heard his voice in her head, " _My needs are being met just fine,"_ she heard him say to the pretty young woman, followed by a " _Thank you,"_ because William Murdoch defaulted to being good-mannered. _Really, how brazen…_ her inner fury flared again.

William caught Julia begin to search the room and worked to deflect from a confrontation, "Shall we go?" he asked her.

Her eyes back to his, she nodded. "Of course," she said placing her napkin on the tabletop, starting to push her chair back, but then remembering to wait for him to come around and gentlemanly pull it back for her.

Heading out, William realized that Julia had left the Tiger Rose in the water glass on the table. "Uh… Julia, wait," he stopped her and then rushed back to get it, feeling the weight of nearly all the eyes of restaurant patrons following him as he hurried across the restaurant floor. Droplets of water sprinkled about as he pulled the Tiger Rose free from the water glass. He took out his handkerchief and began to wrap the thorny stem in it so that Julia could better hold it. Looking up to where he had left her waiting, the _**empty space**_ there hit him hard. " _She left! Darn. She's angry…"_ he felt his heart sink.

But then, _out of the corner of his eye_ … " _That was most definitely Julia"_ … _"Bloody h…"_ he stopped his brain from finishing the unacceptable thought, and then he was already dashing in her direction before it completely registered. This was dangerous, to say the least – Julia was confronting the waitress, right there in front of a table full of guests!

"You owe us both an apology," he heard her saying sternly as he got closer…

"Him, for tempting him to betray me. And me for… for trying to lure my husband into an illicit affair… and for using my being pregnant – with HIS child mind you, as the way to do it! It's despicable…"

"Julia," William exclaimed as he arrived, then anxiously nodded to the large table of diners, "Uh…" all eyes on him, he suddenly had no idea what to say.

"She knew exactly what she was doing, and she wronged us… both of us," Julia caught his eye, saw him take comfort in their bond. "She _**should**_ apologize, William," she insisted again.

"Yes," William agreed immediately. Truly, his wife was brilliant. The waitress apologizing to them, for she had most assuredly trespassed against them, that would help. "Yes, that seems the right thing to do," he reiterated, turning to request it more directly from the waitress herself.

The young woman turned bright red, felt such a dizziness of shame she could hardly stand. She managed to blurt out that she was sorry before she ran away into the kitchen, out of sight. It would take all the courage she could muster to later return to that same table of patrons to deliver their meals.

As for William and Julia, William rose to the occasion beautifully. He stepped Julia aside, looked into her eyes, took a chest-lifting deep breath and smiled, and then he wrinkled a corner of his mouth, and she just toppled completely for him. He offered her the Tiger Rose once more, winsomely tilting near to her, whispering in her ear, "Rare and remarkable, remember," and then he touched his fingers under her chin, rough and gritty meeting softness…

And her heart flipped over in her chest, and the floor floated up, and the world swept into a swirl… _HE WAS GOING TO KISS HER…_

"Here, William?" her voice blended squeaking with a gasp.

His perfect voice, _home_ , told her, "Everywhere, Julia. I love you to your soul, everywhere," _and then he did_ , he kissed her right there in the French restaurant with everybody watching them. The only thing missing were the colorful bursts of fireworks all around them, and the whole world knew, once again, that they WERE Toronto's storybook couple.

On the way out, the cold of late February biting on the skin and freezing in the lungs, he asked her if she thought their picture might be in the newspaper, the two of them kissing in public – again.

"Perhaps," she replied happily, tucking her arm into his elbow and squeezing him close, "Perhaps."

)

As William and Julia arrived at home, Claire-Marie heard them and came to meet them at the door. Immediately the young nanny spotted the Tiger Rose in the doctor's hand. " _They made up!"_ her heart delighted, and she gushed about the beauty of the strange flower. While the couple took off their winter coats, she offered to put the flower in a vase, Julia requesting it be placed on the kitchen table so they could enjoy it over breakfast.

Julia asked Claire-Marie about William Jr.'s using the toilet before he had gone to bed.

The nanny frowned, "I'm sorry to say, he wouldn't even try on the potty," she reported, herself unaware of what exactly had happened the night before. "As a matter of fact, not all day. He insisted on nappies," she added.

William Jr.'s parents shared a meaningful look.

Claire-Marie grasped the significance of the look, understood that there had been a problem with this last night, and then her heart jumped up, suddenly for she remembered that the detective had also spent the night on the couch, and she knew that whatever had happened with their son's potty-training, it had likely been at the center of the argument they had had last night.

"Two steps forward, one step back with these things," Julia said, trying to dispense calm.

Once they were alone, they agreed that they would have to more directly address the problem, planning to talk with William Jr. about it, making sure the little one understood how they are both so proud of what a big boy he has been trying to be, and that they expected that his getting out of his nappies would take some time, but also that they each were certain that he would be able to do it.

William felt a knot in his stomach over the whole thing.

He told her he had remembered more, more about his own father's support when he had been a boy, but he was unable to remember anything from so young as William Jr. was now. He remembered that his father was proud of anything he accomplished that was athletic…

 _And in Julia's head there was a flash of the memory of when she was still married to Darcy, and she was helping William play out his trick on the man from the Blackhand in order to save Anna Fulford's life, and he looked so incredibly good in his tighter baseball suit, and he had hit a home run and been the star of the day._

"Oh," he had suddenly added with the memories solidifying in his brain, "and my maths… My father was always impressed at my ability to do math. But…" he wrinkled a corner of his mouth questioning that memory in more detail, "Well, I remember one time I was doing a… well, a chemistry experiment, I guess, with my mother's cooking sundries… I'd discovered the reaction between vinegar and baking soda. And my father came by mumbling about how there was something wrong with a boy who would do such an outlandish thing. It wasn't manly… he had said…"

"Oh, I beg to differ, William. Chemistry is most definitely manly…" she stepped into his arms, and the mood flared into romantic, "and womanly. And when the right two, when the right man, with the right woman, come close enough together to excite… Mmm," she admired his body through his clothes. Her lips dangled over his as she said, "The attraction can be quite strong, electromagnetic, gravitational, hmm…? Downright covalent and ionic, somehow all at once."

And then, she kissed him, William standing stiff, resisting the fall.

And then breaking off the kiss, she asked of him, "Shall we shower together – conduct a little chemistry experiment of our own?"

And then her giggle peppered the air, for all he could manage to give was a stunned nod in response. And with that, she took her man by the hand and brought him up the stairs, for a hot shower, _very hot._ His wife would send him off to Ottawa happy.

 **) (**

 **It was on a dark country road in the blackest hours of night. As the wagon pulled over to the side of the road along the deserted property line, the hardened older snow crackled under the wagon wheels as they left their long, thin tracks. The horse stomped his foot, impatient. A single figure, dressed for the frigid late February weather in a hooded coat and bulky boots, face covered with a woolen mask, giving both cover from the cold and safeguarding against being identified, began the dirty deed. The first thing out, a stepladder, one of two, wedged by half a dozen wooden boxes against the wall of the wagon, held there tight and requiring a strong tug to free it.**

 **The snow was deep, nearly over the tops of the boots as the dark figure drudged the ladder through the snow to the fence line, the first of many sets of footprints in the snow -** _ **unavoidable**_ **. The stepladder placed within an inch of the fence posts, dug deep into the snow to secure it, the Body Dumper made sure to note the precise location of Murdoch's tripwire, finding it running all along the top rail of the fence, but sneakily hidden on the inner side. A second stepladder was tossed over the fence. After climbing over to the fresh side, that second ladder was setup on other side of fence mirroring the first – the whole time the killer being extremely careful NOT to touch the wire,** _ **not**_ **to get caught in the trap.**

 **Then up the ladder and back over again… boxes, boxes, boxes…**

 **Deep into the woods and over to the shore of the Don River, as expected it was partially frozen over. The search for an indent in the ground successful, the shoveling began. Under the snow there was a layer of dark leaf litter that scattered when tossed aside, stark against the white snow, but under that, the ground was frozen solid. The dump would not be deep, but there was hope, hope that with the body, chopped up as it was, would be largely carried away by animals before it was discovered.** _ **Maybe, maybe, it would never be found at all.**_

 **With the dumping of the chunks of the contents of the first box into the 'grave,' the sight of the body parts toppling out, some of the parts so blatantly identifiable,** _ **a foot…**_ **, and the retching disgust curled the Body Dumper into a moment of weakness. The vomit swallowed back, bile and acid, for it was essential to minimize the evidence, the Body Dumper ran for the icy running water of the river to hurl into it, the potential evidence lost in the undertow.**

 **The last box was the hardest, the most gruesome. It was not to be buried under the snow with the others. This box held the parts that could identify the victim, the head and the fingertips. Already sickened by the whole ordeal, the Body Dumper was careful not to look, head turned away as the wooden box suddenly felt lighter, bobbing up into the air, right before the splash – a big one, and following it, distinctly imprinted on the memory, a spattering of tinkling smaller ones, "** _ **the fingers**_ **," the mind disturbingly explained the sounds, taking some solace in the fact that their audible passing meant that the evidence had made its way into the flowing water to be washed away.**

 _ **Almost done**_ **… the empty boxes were tossed back over the fence. And once the Body Dumper had climbed over the roadside of the fence, the farther stepladder was lifted out of the snow… avoiding contact with the wire.** _ **Made it!**_

 **Moments later the tapering off of the crisp echoes of the crunching of the wagon wheels in the snow was the very last chance to catch the Body Dumper in the act.**

 _ **Undetected, the deed was done.**_

) (

It was fortunate that William had planned to meet George early at the Stationhouse for the constable to help him pack up and transport the various pieces of equipment he needed to take with him to Ottawa. He was bringing the truthilzer, but William had also figured he may as well include the ultra-violet photography, and so the camera, and the associated special lenses, along with the photographs of the oddly shaped bruise the innovative technique had uncovered on a victim's thigh, also needed to be readied. Thus, William was in his office when Jake Castern, the caretaker out at their Body Farm, phoned with the news of his discovery – another body had been dumped on their property, most likely last night.

The drought of murders was over, and unfortunately, with the sudden influx of something important for William to do also came the end of the pleasant lull in the press' attacks on them as a couple. The calm had been lovely, a result of the news being spread exponentially by the women at their Church that Dr. Ogden was pregnant, the celebration subsequently ending up being loudly broadcast in all the headlines, and with it, endless comments about how the Murdoch's had always been innocent of the charges railed against them by the press of their illegally using contraception. It was ' _obvious they were NOT'_ now, for how else would Dr. Ogden have gotten pregnant? This very morning, there had been a photograph of Julia walking on the street with him, and a big to-do about how " _the little Murdoch bump_ " was visible already. Even all those rejections the they had received from all those orphanages when they were trying to adopt a child were seemingly rendered mute, representing merely mistakes in judgement on the parts of the snobby committee members. But now, now that yet another body had been dumped on their property, the newspaper assaults would surely begin all over again.

William unknowingly rubbed roughly at his brow as he called Julia over at the morgue to let her know. His fingers massaged red marks into his forehead. The news wasn't good.

) (

 _ **(This was a particularly grisly body dump).**_

Back in the morgue, William came in for an initial report. Despite the skin-crawling feelings brought on by this latest murder, he still found his step lively, his heart light. Upon opening the large morgue door, her music instantly showered him _, and always, always, when he discovered her playing her phonograph in the morgue like this, he remembered the first time he had encountered the lovely sight, the juxtaposition of its uplifting sound with the gloom and gore of where it was located, and he had felt it happen then, one of many, many times to come, his heart had opened up, with a warm aching, it had opened, expanded, stretched and enlarged. He had felt the undeniable sensation of love._

The bam of the door closing behind him drew her eyes up to meet his. She approached, wiping her hands clean on her morgue apron.

 _Funny, he felt those butterflies_ , nervously slid his fingers along the brim of his hat in his hands. He could feel the smile, _out of control_ , on his face.

William," she called out to him.

Her face was bright, happy to see him… _She was so beautiful,_ the thought hit him again for the umpteenth time.

"Doctor," he gave her his charming bow. The game was more fun if they held to that exciting tension between professionals and lovers.

"What have you?" he asked her.

Julia held her eyes to his for a brief moment too long as she made the shift inside. She gestured for William to approach the body – _well, body PARTS really_ , laid out on the morgue slab like the pieces of a jigsaw-puzzle of a man, creating the illusion of what used to be. It was an incomplete jigsaw puzzle at that, for this particular puzzle was blatantly missing a head.

"Our victim… And I do believe that this time it is just the one…" she paused waiting for William to make the connection she had intended – to remember the last time he had had a case with merely a few parts of a body to work with, back when he had mailed her the three pieces, a forearm, a foot, and part of a torso, to analyze in Buffalo, and she had discovered that they were from _three_ different victims rather than just, as had been expected, the one.

William pinched his lips together tightly and nodded. Bad memories were associated with that time in his life, painful memories. They showed on his face, in just that little twitch of a second. It was not just the gruesomeness of remembering the chopped-up pieces of the victim at the time, but also of _her having had left him to go to Buffalo, and his constant fights with her replacement – that strict and slothly Dr. Francis…_

Julia looked back down to the evidence positioned out in front of them, getting back to her report. She inhaled and began, "The victim was male, about 40 years old. He was in good shape, but…" there was a pause, _trying to find how to say it_ , "Well, what evidence we do have from what little there is of his fingers, and from the palms of his hands, suggests that he was not a laborer – he lacks the callouses that would be expected." She took a breath, changing the subject. "He was a big man, tall and brawny…"

William stepped closer, listening. He leaned down to the arm closest to him.

 _She wondered if he was remembering all those years ago when she had admired the dead boxer's big, muscly arms. This victim was not as well-endowed as that one had been. Oh, but William had been so deliciously jealous,_ she remembered _. It had been absolutely lovely…_

"Any identifying features, doctor?" he asked.

 _So slightly, there was a sigh from her, impatient with his doggedness,_ and in response, _so subtly, a devilish smile from him, a part of him enjoying her disappointment._

"There are no notable scars or tattoos or birthmarks. And obviously," her tone was back to official, "the victim was naked, so there will be no evidence from his clothing. There weren't any fibers that I could find, indicating that he was likely naked when…"

William's eyes jumped up to hers, _such anticipation, worry, dread in his eyes…_

"Oh," she rushed to say, "He was already dead when he was chopped-up, William," she reassured. Julia saw the gratitude in his eyes before he hardened and went on with their business at hand.

"So, decapitation wasn't cause of death then?" he asked pointedly.

"No. No, um the wound at the neck was post-mortem, as were all the others…" her tone twinged with a bit of teasing as she slyly added, "detective," and then went on, "An axe, I'd think.". She moved on to consider cause of death and the weapon. "There are no bullet wounds – no bullet, obviously," she chuckled at her own silliness.

Julia cleared her throat, _laughing inside at her husband's strained facial expression_. Back to sounding as official as she could muster, she continued, adding, "There are no significant cuts or stab wounds, so not a knife… I suppose he could have been poisoned… or even hit, or shot, in the head, as no head was recovered…"

William interrupted, sharing his suspicions about the head and the tips of the fingers, "There were footprints out onto the ice. The head was probably dumped along with the fingers into the flowing river." Then William considered aloud, "The victim could have been shot with a rifle… like the first victim you and your students found... dumped, back on the Fall Equinox?" He wrinkled his face, questioning himself.

"That was nearly half a year ago, William," she said, a hint of worry in her voice. "Do you think it's the same killer?! The Body Dumper?!" she asked.

Their eyes met.

 _The Body Dumper was the only case he had not solved last year._

 _And the press had been rabid about the whole thing._

 _It would start all over again!_

She could tell that he suspected so by the ' _admitting-it'_ wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. But he had no proof, no direct evidence. And they both knew their focus needed to be on the clues.

"The killer knew about my boobytrap. Whoever it was used two stepladders to avoid contacting the wire on the fence," William's mind began delving, _"Only one set of footprints left in the snow – only one person…"_ His mind down another track, asked, _"Who would know about the trap?"_

Julia watched William's face change, take on that focused and yet relaxed, honed look.

"I'll have to question that older reporter, the one who set off the trap, got caught in the net but cut himself free, when he planted a fake body to get a headline…"

"Charlie Masters," Julia provided the name.

"Yes," William nodded.

Julia reminded him, "But William, anyone reading Madge Merton's story about the spots and stripes on the leopards and the tigers would have known that you had set a trap. They'd be on the lookout for whatever tricks and devices you had set-up to catch them."

William considered it. "Still…" he argued, "He seemed to know details… things that only someone who had gotten captured in it _before_ would likely know."

Julia almost laughed out loud at the expression of surprise on William's face. _He had thought of something!_

"That is if it is a " _ **HE**_ " at all?" he wondered aloud…

And for a moment, he tilted his head, and he chased down the clues.

Julia knew this look. She would wait.

 _Multiple pathways fired, like fireworks in his brain, electric and fast, apart, separate gleaming streamers… lightning speed, coming together…_

" _It was the footprints, bootprints actually,"_ William corrected his own thoughts, _"Big. But, there was something not right. The weight was distributed strangely – too much weight to the back of the boot…"_

And inside William's head, on another offshoot, he was remembering a case from back when the toff-philanthropist, Howard Rockwood, had been murdered. Rockwood was the founder of Baker House. ( _The same Baker House was a home for children that had recently been among the many orphanages to reject the Murdoch's application to adopt a child, the place still leaving a bad taste in William's mouth_ ). Supposedly Rockwood had been trampled by horses, but William had figured it out. The horses, being meant for the glue factory, should not have had shoes on their hooves… _But the boots, the bootprints in the dirt mixed in with the shod hoofprints of the horses… "Street children,"_ he had figured back then, _"wearing boots that were too big for them and stuffing socks in the toes… The front of the bootprints had been too light, not deep enough compared to the depth in the dirt made by the heel."_

His mind tossed up one final thought – _the killer had turned out to be a woman_ , the only one leaving footprints in the horse pen _without_ the odd weight-distribution pattern. Rockwood's wife in the end, wearing her own, child-sized boots that night. She had whacked her wealthy husband on the back of the head with a shovel, a crime of passion to protect their adopted daughter from Rockwood's abusive sexual advances.

"At the scene," William's attention was back with a jolt, "The Bootprints left in the snow… They were large, I'd say size 11 or so…"

"Odd," Julia interrupted him before he could get to the point. But then unexpectedly she broke into giggles, her own logic catching up to her thoughts. "I was going to say the killer's shoe size would have been about the same size as our victim here, but clearly, the man didn't chop himself up into pieces now, did he?" She wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him, her apology, his style of expressing it.

"Coincidence, I guess," William concluded.

"I'm sorry, Wil… detective," she corrected, "What were you saying?"

"The heels were too deep compared to the front part of the bootprints. It could have been a woman wearing a man's boots, to throw us off the scent," he suggested.

 _Truly, the man is ingenious_ , she thought to herself. "Yes. Yes, I see what you mean. We should be careful not to make assumptions. Perhaps the killer is a woman," she agreed.

"Or a smaller man," William added the possibility, with a corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle.

William's eyes dropping back down to the body assembled on the morgue slab indicated he was anxious to get back to the postmortem report.

Julia took a deep breath following his glance. _The display was quite something_. "Chopping-up the body like this, but then leaving all the parts… well, **these** parts, leaving the pieces together in the same shallow grave of snow – it doesn't make any sense?" she posed the question. "Perhaps, I guess, the smaller pieces would decompose faster than if the body were left intact, with the larger surface area exposed I mean. But that would be irrelevant in this freezing weather… Oh!" she had an idea, "Maybe the killer _**wanted**_ to make the body easy to find! Maybe he wanted to attract _**animals**_ to the body parts so that they could dispose of it by carrying it off in pieces. The killer figured there wouldn't be much to be found by anyone, come spring…"

While Julia talked on, William stared down at the deeply creviced chop marks near the edges of the different parts of the body. He remembered Dr. Francis telling him about marks like those, back when Julia was in Buffalo. He re-heard Dr. Francis' voice explaining, " _Incidentally, these clean cuts here indicate an axe was used for the dismemberment…"_ And then flashes from that case began to cascade in his mind, _of finding the one cement block on the shore of the Don River, being able to see the ankle of the foot distinctly at the edge of the flat, gray, rock-hard cement. He had fought with Dr. Francis – again, about his inappropriateness in requesting that the doctor come out to the crime scene_.

And then he remembered their unfriendly exchange in the morgue later. Dr. Francis seemed to have absolutely no sense of urgency in doing the postmortem. Sarcastically, the man had snapped at him about people having the " _unfortunate habit of dying,_ _sometimes in bunches – like this week_." William sighed, remembering how much the roadblock to working his case had been frustrating him beyond his ability to hold his patience. But then, then he had looked for something, _anything_ that he could use to move forward on the case – and fortunately he had spied a large chunk of the cement block that was off to the side on a cabinet in the morgue, still intact, and William had noticed that the pattern of the wood that had lined the cement block while it had hardened was visibly etched into the cement. He heard himself, inside his head, start to ask Dr. Francis, " _May I take…?"_ and then being rudely and snidely dismissed with, " _Yes! So long as you leave me in peace."_ The sour taste in his mouth curled his upper lip.

Ironically, it was _that_ very piece of evidence, the imprint he had made by tracing the wood's knot pattern from the cement block onto a piece of paper, that had ended up being the key in proving his case. His predecessor at stationhouse #4, Detective Lamb, had turned out to be the killer. A dull ache flamed in William's chest as he realized, as he thought, that Lamb's case had been so much like his own with Constance Gardner, from back when he was a constable and he had convinced her, then as Ava Moon, to testify against that lecherous Cudmore in court, only to have the villain rape and viciously slash her with a knife after he was found NOT guilty, destroying her face _**and**_ her ability to ever have children. She had paid so much for _HIS_ mistake, _HIS_ insistence on holding to the truth, telling on the stand that his Inspector at the time had beaten Cudmore when the man had confessed, leading to Cudmore's being set free. Clearly now, William recognized, that this case with Detective Lamb had been the driving force behind his decision to free Constance Gardner – at the cost of stopping Julia from marrying Darcy. So similar, this crime to that one – Lamb's with a murdered Harriet King, and her three killers Lamb's victims, Lamb chopping them up and dividing their body parts into cement blocks, and then his own with Constance Gardner, a confessed murderer, and him breaking the law to set her free…

"What is it, William?" he heard compassion in Julia's voice as she called him back.

The two lovers stared into each other's eyes for a breath.

His exhale warmed his heart before he told, "I… I was remembering a case. The one with the three body parts, um…" he cleared his throat…

 _There was stress there._

William went on, "I sent them to you in Buffalo…"

"Yes," Julia leaned closer, "I remember the case. There are certainly similarities."

William reminded himself that Detective Lamb had been found guilty of the three murders – that he was in jail. Thus, Lamb could not be responsible for this crime. His alibi was rock-solid. But then William's mind went off on a tangent, remembering that it was only recently, during the Pink Panther Diamond case, that he had been reminded of Malcolm Lamb's current status as a prisoner in the Don Jail, by the previous Stationhouse #4 detective's father, Alderman Lamb. Standing there now in the morgue next to Julia, he still poignantly remembered the sting of his being dressed-down in the Inspector's office by the alderman and Thurston Howell the 1st. Mr. Howell was the pompous toff who was hosting the showing of the Pink Panther Diamond as part of his Halloween gala. William had had evidence that the priceless diamond had already been stolen by Neil Catfrey and Sally Pendrick, but, since it turned out that Alderman Lamb was the owner of the Riverdale Zoo, the place where the Pink Panther Diamond was being held and would be displayed, Howell was able to shut down William's investigation. The two men had argued that the current Stationhouse #4 detective, William, could not be trusted because he was such a stickler for the law. The proof they had for this complaint against him was specifically that he had had a GOOD man like Alderman Lamb's son, Detective Malcolm Lamb, sent up for killing despicable men who clearly deserved it, _and worse_ , for what they had done to that poor King woman…

"Do you think the two cases are linked William?" she asked him.

William looked puzzled, _unsure if she was asking, again, if he thought the Body Dumper was the killer in both cases where the victims were dumped at their Body Farm._

His pause prompted her to clarify, "I mean the one when I was in Buffalo, and this one?"

Julia managed not to chuckle when he wrinkled the corner of his mouth and then frowned.

"Perhaps," he replied, "But unlikely. The man who killed and chopped-up those victims while you were in Buffalo is in the Don Jail, I'm certain of it."

"Oh?" she asked for more.

Another frown.

"The detective before me at Stationhouse Four," he answered, "Detective Malcolm Lamb."

Julia burst into giggles…

Her unexpected reaction knocked William back on his heels a step with his surprise.

She asked him, "Really?!"

Not having time to nod, William stiffly stood just watching her.

"That's his name – ' _ **Lamb**_?" she checked.

His stance remained cautious, for William was preparing himself.

She covered her mouth with her hand, declaring, "Oh William," she pushed her explanation through her giggles, "You'll hate it!" and then she bent over and laughed harder…

Then even harder when he frowned.

She decided to say it, despite the fact that her joke was certain to be met with his scorn, "It's just that both cases involve a…" her face was already deliciously pink with preparing to deliver her punchline. Finally, she blurted it out, "They both have a _LAMB-CHOP_!"

William managed to remain stiff, to extend the joy of the game, him playing his role perfectly. William Murdoch tended to make quite a good straight man given the opportunity, and he saw her absolute playful, lovely, wonderful pleasure dancing in her eyes. _Right then and there, William Murdoch's heart opened even that tiniest bit more with love for this magnificent woman_. The only detectable movement from him, a delayed lift of one eyebrow, collapsing her completely.

He waited for Julia to finish reveling in the pain she had caused him with her, _even worse than usual_ , bad pun. Once he thought she was ready, despite the fact that the sides of her mouth seemed to be wholly stuck in that wide smile on her face, he planned to move on with his investigation.

 _Yes, Julia was right about him, William was undeniably tenacious when there was a case on the table –_ _so to speak. ( ;_

"What have you on time of death, doctor?" William asked her, using a simple gesture towards the body pieces arranged on the morgue slab to pull her back in, sensing she was ready to get back to the case.

Julia ducked her chin down and looked up at him through her eyelashes. There was a hint of scolding, but with it an effort at holding back the urge to do so, resulting in a hesitation, as she coached herself behind her blue eyes that _she knew who it was she had married, and she loved this man, exactly as he was, with all her heart._ Something settled, and then she took a big, deep breath and stepped forward, focusing her attention on the body once more.

"Well, detective, there's something odd about that too," she answered him, wiping her hands at her morgue apron again.

"Oh?" he inhaled with bated breath, his own anticipation rising.

"Well, as you know, all these body parts were frozen. That makes determining time of death complicated. But this is curious…"

 _It tickled her insides the way he perked up, intrigued by a strange clue._

Julia used a surgical probe to pull back some flesh at one of the chop marks and exposed the deeper flesh. Little white specks could be seen in the wound. "These maggots. See…?"

He nodded. His brain was fast, and it rushed to consider the evidence. _There was something different about them_ , and NOT just because Julia had alerted him that they would be odd. " _Ahhh_ ," he got it! He had seen such maggots thousands of times before, but they were usually _wiggling. These were completely still!_

"You wouldn't expect flies… in the dead of winter…" she stated the problem to be solved.

She elaborated, "Remember that dead body that Inspector McWorthy insisted I autopsy a little while back, the one found frozen amongst a bunch of pigs in a pigpen…?"

William smiled. "I remember the stench of it when he defrosted," he said.

"Yes, it was quite awful," she agreed, her own mind reminding her of _a long time ago when she had pestered William about the stench in his office, falling for his story about something dying in his walls, until he showed her his rotting liver in the backroom – brilliant, hatching Junebug larvae…_

Her face lit up as she added, "Well, McWorthy's body didn't have any maggots at all… But remember the Junebugs William!?" she rushed to ask him and then paused, knowing he would catch up.

"Of course, Julia!" William exclaimed. "Our victim was someplace warm before he was frozen, just like that victim years ago, who was killed by Dr. Birkins, and the Junebugs laid their eggs, and then after they had laid their eggs, the body was put on ice in the icehouse, and that delayed their hatching by five days! Yes! Yes, of course. This victim had to be similar."

He looked at his wife, saw that she was still waiting, his face already wrinkling with the conundrum. "But that victim… the one with the Junebugs, he was killed in the summer. This victim was killed… well…"

"I'd say at most a week to ten days ago," Julia answered him, "Though, that's what I've been trying to tell you, it could have been longer. It depends on how long the body had been frozen."

"Of course," William gave.

"You may have noticed that this body… well, at least all these parts of a body…" she began to explain with a nod to the puzzle pieces on the slab, "They don't reek as badly as did the body McWorthy sent me. That's because the one McWorthy sent me had been frozen in the pigpen almost immediately after death. That body hadn't gone through putrefaction before it was frozen, so it went through it when it defrosted here in my morgue. This victim here was kept warm past the really stinky stage, about three days or so. And these maggots would have taken more like six or seven days to get to this size. So, we know the body was kept somewhere warm, _and_ somewhere where there are flies, for at least six days after he was killed!"

She had hoped for more excitement.

"Well, it's a good clue, isn't it?" she pressed at him.

Realizing he was disappointing her, William cheered up. "Yes. Yes Julia, it's… well, I'm sure it will be important…" _He just needed a minute… to make some connections._

 _The truth be told however, and even William, himself, did not know this yet, he had already made the connections, and he really, really did not like where the conclusions were leading him._

He frowned and then decided to think out loud, feeling her waiting for him. "The body must have been kept someplace where it is warm in winter, but it cannot be someplace like inside a house or a flat because there also must be flies there…" he said, thinking, "So, probably with animals…"

"A Stable?!" Julia suggested.

 _Such a vile and sickening feeling trickled into William's gut with the next thought, triggering bad, bad memories…_

"Or a slaughterhouse," he added. _His gut telling him that that would be the place in the end._

She had seen the disgusted look on his face, and now she knew why it was there. _William had nearly died at a slaughterhouse, at Davies Slaughterhouse to be exact, here in Toronto, and not that long ago either – right before William Jr. was born, while he was working on the meatpacking case. That same case that took him and George out onto the trains to pose as hobos._

She remembered, _somewhere inside her head_ , that William and George had met Upton Sinclair, the author of the hugely popular American book, "The Jungle," while riding the train to Chicago. Sinclair had been researching his book by posing as a hobo too.

" _But,_ " her brain screamed at her, " _William will have to go BACK to Davies Slaughterhouse now, to investigate this case!"_

Julia's eyes followed William's hand as it rose to cover his trapezius muscle at the top of his shoulder. _And she knew he was subconsciously feeling the pain all over again, remembering being hung from the meathook that awful night._ The whole story was horrid, William and Constable Jackson getting chloroformed while searching the offices at the slaughterhouse, and then later regaining consciousness to find themselves naked and wrapped head to toe in burlap and rope, and then hung from a meathook up on the ceiling in the darkest hours of night, in among a line of pig carcasses waiting to be sliced in half by a huge rotary saw in the morning. Her heart melted for him.

"William," her voice so soothing, warm with empathy and care, "Going there…" she pushed herself to say the name, "…to Davies Slaugh…" and then her voice caught _**because the word 'Slaughterhouse' has the word 'slaughter' in it – and that was exactly what had almost happened to him!**_ And tears filled her eyes.

She dropped her eyes away from his, _too revealed_ for a second.

After a deep breath, she looked back up. "Of course you will," she said pinching her lips together, stronger, knowing William Murdoch well enough to know that he would face his demons, that he would go wherever the clues led him. "You're like a dog with a bone when you've got a case," she said.

William breathed out some of the bottled-up pressure. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her admitting it and added, "Not just any case, Julia. This one… well, this is the _second_ time a body has been dumped at our Body Farm. The press is not going to let this go. It's going to get bad again," he warned.

He moved his hand from his shoulder to rub at his brow.

"You'll solve it William. I know you will," she tried to encourage him.

Sensing he would prefer changing the subject, Julia said, "So husband, now that this case has got its teeth into you, I don't suppose you'll be taking me to lunch. We've worked straight through it, and I'm famished."

He smiled and gave her a handsome bow, "Well, you are eating for two," he said.

She smiled and placed her hand over her slightly bulging womb. "Yes, the 'Murdoch Bump," she said, using the morning's headline. Her expression threatened to tease. "Well, as it is YOU who gave me this 'Murdoch Bump,' Mr. Murdoch, perhaps YOU should also be taking me out for lunch," she reasoned.

William raised a mischievous eyebrow at her, posing, "So, it's _**'I'**_ who gave you that bump?"

 _Amazing, how quickly disaster struck after that._

Instantly Julia's face scrunched into squeaking sobs, "You think someone else… William! You think I…!?" her tears flooding and glistening her cheeks…

" _Oh, this was a runaway train!"_ William's brain bellowed at him with PANIC!

"No!" William gasped, "Julia NO! Look at me. Look at me," he reached out and grabbed her by her upper arms, pulled her closer. Rushed breaths, he pleaded, "I was just teasing – that _**WE**_ made the bump, that _**You**_ had something to do with it too, that it wasn't _**me**_ alone. I never meant… I've never thought, not ever one little iota, that you ever…" William found he couldn't even say it.

 _Relieved,_ he saw she believed him. _The runaway train had been stopped._

She sniffled.

He was already pulling out his handkerchief from his inside pocket. As he handed it to her, softly rubbing away a stream of tears from her cheeks himself first, William was thinking back to _the myriad of times that Julia had charmed him with her provocative change from his seeing himself as being all_ alone, _and her showing him, reminding him, that they were a team, a VERY GOOD team, that they were_ together.

He swallowed and said, with his customarily winsome wrinkle, "Somehow it works so much better when you do it…"

Making her laugh.

And she stepped into his arms, and he took one of her wild curls in his fingers, let his fingers brush against her neck, her ear, tucked his fingers deeper into her hair.

 _They could… They might…_

William stopped the fall into romantic bliss. "I uh… I should investigate the stables, and the other… the slaughterhouses."

"So, no lunch for your devoted, loving, loyal and brilliantly wonderful wife then?" she teased him, just a little, still hoping to tempt the dog away from his bone.

His exhale, through pursed lips, assured that she had failed to sway him. He would take the heat. Accepting the fact that she was right, a wrinkle of admission followed, for he was wholly tied-up, as usual, with the case.

Julia sighed and asked, giving in, riding along with him where he was if she could not get him to be where she wanted him to be, "Do you think the papers will assume it's the Body Dumper again?"

He frowned and said, sweeping his hand through space to make it appear as if she could read what he was saying, "Murdoch's Body Dumper Strikes Again."

Julia had one better, making him suffer through yet another bad pun. She lifted up one of the victim's lower legs and improved, "Murdoch _**Stumped**_ by Body Dumper Again," waiting for his moan.

He obliged, groaning with having to endure the misery. "I hope not," he said shaking his head at her and joining her in laughing, "I sincerely hope not."

And then, after thinking twice about it, William decided to take his wife out to lunch after all. The whirlwind was most certainly about to begin, and he wanted her to feel loved and cared for before he completely yielded to it. "The Windsor House?" he proposed, extending his elbow to her.

"Why William," she smiled and tucked her arm into his, "That would be lovely."

) (

Arriving at the front gate of Davies Slaughterhouse with the Sun gone, and the day shift of filthy, reeking, exhausted workers filing out, William looked at his pocket watch in the dull glow of the street lamps. " _Missed supper…"_ he thought to himself, in his head imagining the warm coziness of their delicious-smelling kitchen, with his beautiful wife, and his bright-eyed little baby, and the efficient-minded Eloise fluttering about. A frown showed on his face as he recognized now that it might have been a mistake to put Davies off until the last on the list to investigate. He sighed. He had hoped that one of the other stables or abattoirs or even Burns' cattle-slaughtering plant would have held the evidence he needed. They had not, and down in his bones, he was not surprised, for it felt like fate that he would end up here. " _Might as well follow this through,"_ he heard his own voice inside his head say.

Back in the recesses of his mind, _he was already imagining ways to sneak in later_ , when he would have a better chance of going undetected, the night shift much smaller, and the management closed up for the night.

Deciding it was best to get out of sight before the manager, or even worse Davies himself, came out and recognized him, William joined in with the flow of the exiting workers. He knew that right now his greatest advantage was that they did not know he suspected them, and he wanted to keep it that way. He asked a man where most of the workers go after a hard day's work. With that, William was invited to join a bunch of the men on their way to the local bar, the _Blind Tiger Pub_.

)

A few hours later William was back at the ill-omened entrance to Davies Slaughterhouse. Through his detective work, all the while nursing a single glass of whiskey that he had managed to avoid actually drinking, he had learned of a missing line worker, and it was confirmed by the bartender that the man had been missing for about a week. Thus, his investigation required a closer look. His mind had jumped ahead, picturing gaining clandestine access to the upstairs offices and stealing a glimpse at their records for the missing worker's information, dates of work, most recent address, and such.

 _It was largely dark in there._ A deep breath for courage, and an effort at calming his nerves, and he advanced inward, hugging to the inside of the fence-line where the slaughterhouse lights were most dim. William pictured finding incriminating evidence, _"Maybe clothing_ ," he thought, remembering that Julia had said _the victim had been naked when his body had been cutup, thus his clothes may have been removed and left where he had been…_

Intrusive, the memories came, paralyzing him in his tracks…

 _He was dangling on the meathook in the stench and the blackness, nauseous with the screaming pain in his shoulder. Earlier that same day he and Jackson had seen a pig carcass hanging from a similar hook on this same ceiling he was hanging from now, and they had watched as it had been sliced in half, severed apart by the whirling, huge, silvery spinning saw, the same fate he knew was now waiting for him at the end of his own path. He did not fear dying, for he had had a wonderful divine vision back when he had died in that bathtub all those years ago. But his heart broke for Julia. The regret he felt debilitated him, collapsed him, stealing away with it all the air and the stench, and piercing him with a ceaseless whining in his ears. And now he knew it too as he stood there at Davies stuck in this memory, more clearly than he did back then – he had felt profound guilt. He had chosen to risk his life despite his knowing it would hurt Julia unbearably, it would destroy her. Guilt, because his unborn baby would never know him… So deeply, he regretted that choice._

Regaining control, William thought to himself, " _You should look in the garbage bins_ …"

He moved forward, seeking the cover of the back of the main building where the garbage bins used to be. A part of his brain remembered _George telling him that they had found his and Jackson's clothes in those same garbage bins that night_. So odd, right then and there, _William felt the scratchiness of the burlap against his bare skin._

He had made it to a small structure located close to the main building. His eyes scanned the area. His heart jolted when his eyes caught it, _at first merely peripheral_ , it had stunned him. His scientific brain ran the thought in the background, " _Peripheral vision is more sensitive to dim light than looking directly at it_ …" He had become entranced by seeing the building where _**IT**_ had happened. And he was just back there again, and he knew, hanging there, one among the carcasses, that in the morning the whole process would begin again, and he would die…

And now, unlike then, he remembered with a horrific surge of guilt, so that it floored him all over again, EXACTLY what that process was like. William knew the intricate details of the pig's process through the line because he had worked undercover, at the beginning of the pig-slaughtering line, at Jonathon Ogden's Meatpacking plant in Chicago.

Flashes, _so real_ , filled the cold, dank night with skin-crawling, blood-curdling squeals in his head, instant bile in his mouth with the revulsion, the disgust of the memory – _**HIM**_ the one doing it, _HIM the one responsible_ , placing the chain around the innocent pig's back foot, jumping back into the clear, the machine hoisting the animal up into the air, then bone-cracking thrashing and terrified screaming, the metal of the chain, of the whole apparatus up on the ceiling, howling and fighting to hold, to withstand each slam and twist and jerk the pain-soaked and panicked pig belted out. The first time he had done it, there was an innocence to the act, but the second, _the second time was unforgiveable_ , for he had _**chosen**_ to do it _**knowing full well the cost**_ , he had chosen to solve the case, NOT to give away his cover, NOT to be found out as a detective spying on Jonathon Ogden's Chicago meatpacking plant, but with that choice each and every one of those tortured, agonizing pigs had been a weight on his soul. William fought against the gravity, with all his might he resisted the buckling of his knees, the falling drop to the ground and the dire urge to beg for forgiveness from God for his sins. And William understood then, that it was not fear of Hell eternal that most frightened him, but instead the unbearable agony of the guilt and the shame. Hell was what he deserved, for each of those pigs, and for pulling the trigger and being willing to take James Gilles' life, and for being willing to kill his own child, twice.

Tears in his eyes, hiding there ducked down against a wall in Davies Slaughterhouse, William had a profound awareness, an essential truth revealed to him – it was not he himself who decided if he would be going to Hell… _**No, it was not him – it was**_ _ **God**_ _ **who would decide his fate,**_ and the lingering worry that added on at the end of the thought **,** _ **it was true for Julia's fate as well.**_ And he knew in his heart that _God could be merciful_. _There was still hope, even though he would have condemned himself… and he considered, he would have condemned her too._

Out corner of his eye, he saw movement, electrifying his heart with a hushed gasp. Instincts took over, and he was up, up so quickly, so cleanly, because in one of his lives he had been a lumberjack. Unknowingly, he had climbed up a wooden column of the main building onto the outstretched roof of the second floor, the task completed before he had even thought to himself that _it was probably the night watchman making his rounds._ He remembered, as he laid out flat, plastered to the floor of the roof, and he held his breath and listened with all his might, that he had already imagined climbing up one of those same columns earlier, when he had noticed a second-floor window that had been left opened a tiny crack, and he had pictured sneaking into the offices through it. _**He could still do that – get into the offices through that cracked window, once he was certain the coast was clear.**_

Only a few moments later, William found himself with his fingers squeezed under that window. Now he had to decide, in or out. Risk or leave. A distasteful sensation stole his face, and despite himself, he paled. The memory was there, _Jackson's big shadow behind him in the hallway as he fiddled with the lock to Mulligan's manager's office door… the tiny, humungous 'creak' behind them, then the smell and collapsing dizziness of chloroform,_ then the whole ordeal on the meathook…

Somehow, he fought back to the here and now, _felt the freezing cold on his face, felt his feet on the floor of the outstretched roof, felt his fingers tucked under the wood of the bottom of the window._ The only remnant of his fall back into the horrors of being caught breaking in back then was the swirling, sickening guilt of having had taken the chance of getting caught in the first place, risking getting killed, even _after_ he had promised Julia that he would not. William tried to comfort himself, thinking that he _had kept his promise_ , the _specific_ one he had made to her at the time… _He had NOT gone alone_. But with that thought he was hit with a wham of even heavier guilt – _for Jackson, too, had almost died that night as well._

More thoughts fired in that split second while his fingers prepared to lift the window. _He had been_ _ **spared the guilt back then, too,**_ _ **by fate**_ _,_ neither himself abandoning Julia by chancing being killed with his stubbornness and his tenacity for working a case despite the costs, nor being burdened by the responsibility of Jackson's death, because they both had survived in the end.

His own thought – " _ **TOO"**_ – dragged through his brain. Inquisitive, he had no choice but to chase after it. _TOO,_ because it was fated that there had _NOT_ been a bullet in the chamber when he pulled the trigger to shoot Gillies… _TOO,_ because they had decided in the end _NOT_ to abort William Jr. and Julia had survived giving birth to him… _TOO,_ because, once again, his decision that she abort this second child had been changed, largely by circumstance and her wishing, changed to accept the risk of losing her in trying to have the child…

Another place in his brain warned, the importance of the message heightened by its arriving from off to the side and in a whisper, " _You're NOT with someone else now. This time, you ARE alone."_

William chickened out in that very second. He would NOT go in. He turned back. He snuck back down the wooden column to the ground. He would go home. He would come back tomorrow.

Almost to the gate – _safe_. His brain shot up a last temptation, " _You should at least check the garbage bins…"_ There was a soft thud, William's puffy winter coat absorbing the sound as he planted himself against the fence line, so close to the gate. The thought came as a picture in his mind, seeing himself discovering the _victim's clothes crumpled up and waiting to be discovered in the bins, "…they could be gone tomorrow…"_ The thought had halted his retreat, demanding to be addressed.

 _Two tracks at once…_

 _Julia in his arms tucked under him after making love, tender and vulnerable, and the salty taste of kissing her, and shushing her sobbing, the woman he loved so much that it ached overcome with her dread of losing him…_

And the other, an excruciating pain in his shoulder, so much so that his hand rushed to the wound to cover it, to protect it. Breathless, he identified it as George, George's voice in his head – " _We were certain you were there, sir. We found your clothes in the bins behind the building…"_

The terror struck with grave force…

" _ **Oh God,"**_ William wobbled with his desperation finally folding him, _**HE**_ _had been naked that night, up on that meathook, about to be sliced in half by the huge whirling saw blade_. It was all too close to this victim, his trauma of being naked and cut-up. He couldn't breathe, any choice was gone. He turned and ran, ran like a little baby. Only one thing in all the world – _"get out."_

) (

Their house was quiet. Julia had gone to bed. William sighed, trying to cope with his regret of that. He locked up the house, quietly. Tiptoed past their opened bedroom door, _his lamp left on, Julia curled up on her side of the bed under the covers._ He checked on the baby, _his Little Man_. He had always imagined the feeling s of having a child, but never, never, had he imagined how profoundly strong those feelings would be. His mind drifted to the 'Murdoch Bump.' _Underneath the happiness, the secret feeling was still there,_ he noticed, _the guilt about his being willing to end the child's chances at life,_ and pushed down out of sight underneath it was his heart-stopping fear that Julia would die, so dreaded that he would not allow himself to see it.

In the bedroom, he undressed. He would shower, for desperately he needed to get the distinct and aversive smell of dead meat off of him. He was suspicious that Julia was feigning sleep, but he decided it best not to address it.

Finally, clean, feeling so much better, safe and _home_ in his pajamas, he clicked off his lamp and carefully slipped under the covers to lie next to her.

She gave in to the need to have him in her arms.

Julia rolled over and covered him, tucking him under a leg and an arm as she rested her head down on his chest. His muscles felt strong under her, and the cottony softness of his pajamas against her skin comforted her down to her soul. He felt warm and safe and she loved him so. She took a breath and reminded herself to notice, to be grateful for his heart beating underneath her, reminding, _"He's here. He's fine."_ The tides of his breaths lifted and dropped her, rocking, soothing. Silently, she began to cry.

She felt his chin tuck down close to her head as his fingers swept at the hair dangling down over her face.

"You were worried…?" he said it as a statement as much as a question.

 _And he felt her tiny nod in response rip open his heart, the burn of it wet and warm. It was love, that pain._

The admission to him had lifted the secret of her suffering, and she inhaled despite knowing that he would hear that it was shaky and strained.

"I'm sorry, Julia. I should have called… I, uh…" he halted his words. _It was hopeless. He was wrong_ , _and he knew it._ _She worried terribly about him, always had_. " _And it was only worse when she was pregnant,"_ he reminded himself, _for her instincts would tell her that it would be an utter disaster to lose him now, now that she needed him even more…_

Her voice squeaked, for she still held her breath against the pain, "It's me who should be sorry, William…" She squeezed him tighter for a moment. "I know it's unreasonable… I mean, I knew who I was marrying. And I know you are more cautious than you used to be… And besides, one of the things I love about you is your courage… such a hero really, William…" she nuzzled closer to him, wiggled softly against him to dig in deeper. "But… honestly," she took a breath before it poured out of her in a rush of squeaky tears, "I get so scared…"

William pulled her closer, his lips down to her forehead, "Shhh…" he wished he could take away her pain.

In little blurts and spurts she wrenched up her deepest fears, telling him, "I think to myself that… maybe I will be alright… without you. And then I know I won't be. And, even if you don't get…" she felt herself gagging on the words, "even if you don't get killed… there are so many… other ways…" Julia took a breath, shallow and weak. _Shame crept in, causing hesitation_. She went on, "There are so many other ways I could lose you… All those gorgeous young women throwing themselves at you all the time…"

And then William remembered her University students just recently, _giggling and flirting with him about his upcoming 'lecture…'_

"Julia…" he hugged her tighter…

She stiffened in his arms and sobbed out, "And I'm so old… _**and fat**_! And it's only going to get worse now that I'm pregnant – I'll get huge!"

Spontaneously, William giggled, for his quick mind had thrown up a memory, and he found it funny… at least he found it funny _now, years later._

The unexpected chuckle caught Julia's attention, stopping the tearful fall, and she lifted her head to find his face in the darkness.

William rolled her to place the two of them lying facing each other propped up on their pillows in the dark, eye to eye, heart to heart. His fingers found her face, noticed its softness under the damp heat. He leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Julia," he said, "Do you remember Monsieur Bernier, the man who wanted to fund his expedition to the North Pole?"

She nodded. " _Where could this possibly be going_?" her curiosity was piqued.

William lifted an eyebrow, the familiar action unseen, but nonetheless sensed, in the shadowiness of the room as he told her the story, "He did not know you were my wife, and he… well…"

She could feel William shaking his head with his disbelief, the gesture tickling her inside.

"He considered your… your attributes aloud to me, um… well, man to man, I guess. He said you were too skinny," he finally spit it out, pressing closer to her so she could feel his forehead touch against hers, intimate and sweet.

"Oh… I see," she responded, suddenly wondering if William thought so too.

"I, of course, think you are the most irresistible, beautiful, gorgeous woman in all the land. And this bump here," William's hand, warm and tender, slipped down to cover the baby inside of her, between them, as he told her softly in her ear, "This bump is MY baby growing inside of you, growing inside the woman I love more than any other. And I promise you Julia, to me it is truly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

William wriggled to pull her closer and plant his firmer body into hers, and then basked with the reassurance of feeling Julia lifting her long, supple thigh up over him to embrace him with it, and then he added, "And as for your being ' _old…_ '

 _And he felt her smile tighten against his cheek, anticipating that he would find a way to say something charming…_

William said, "It has always been my biggest wish, my fondest dream, since the moment I met you, to grow old WITH you, Julia Ogden, and therefore it is impossible that you will ever be too old for me to be head over heels in love with you, it is simply not possible."

As the glow flooded her heart, warmed her with its outward-rippling waves, her jaw hung opened, stunned, with the unexpected overflow of emotions. Her eyes reached desperately for his in the dark… _He was such an astounding man_. But, before she would tell him this, she took a breath, soaking in the pleasure for a just a moment longer. "I love you, William. And, I feel better," she told him, and then she leaned and tilted her head and kissed him in the dark.

"Good," he replied, softly, and then with a hint of a promise of more, he kissed a trail along her jawline to her ear, and then downward, growing more rough and demanding, he took the flesh of her neck along with her breath.

Julia being Julia, she would handle the surge of lust that was wholly seizing her womb by teasing him, taunting him, breaking off his hungry kisses, denying him more, making him wait, the push and pull always intensifying the attraction between them.

"And so, William…"

 _Just the tone of her voice caused William to wriggle inside, reminding a little bit of a worm about to be dinner…_

Her devious smile shaped her words, "What did you say to him… to Monsieur Bernier when he said your wife was too skinny?"

" _Whew_ ," his brain exhaled with relief, _He could handle this one_ … and in that very same moment another part of his brain sent him a captivating image, a memory… from their honeymoon, _Julia's breathtaking reflection in the suite window, in the room with a view, the solid tedium of the brick wall from the building next door blocking their view of the sparkling bright lights of the nighttime in New York City, its darkness creating a mirror from behind the glass, and HER before it, bare flesh under her robe, him behind her removing it seductively, slowly, admiring every creamy pink, curvy inch of her…._

William too, felt his body responding to the more wild call. He cleared his throat, yet still his voice scratched. "I… um, I… I can't remember," he flailed.

Julia crawled upward, pushing him onto his back and mounting up on him in the dark, the sliding of their bodies against each other through their nightclothes erupting them both down low, deep inside their most primal parts. "You expect me to believe, William," her voice teased, her lips, her nipping teeth, at his ear, "…that the _GREAT_ Detective Murdoch, with the most…" her mouth kissed down to the spot above the top button of his pajama top, and her fingers pinched it opened, "…detailed and precise and perfect memory I've ever known…" next button in the line gone, "cannot remember defending his wife's beauty to another?" her hand slipped in and poured all over his hunky bumps and bulges.

The pressure on him, William tried. He started by going back in his mind, extending the bated pause between them, adding intrigue… Fortunately, William was quite a master at controlling his lustful urges, for his wife's hand had slid down even lower… Inside his head, he focused. _The three of them, him, Bernier, and Julia, had walked together outside of the museum where Bernier's presentation had been interrupted – as usual, whenever the two of them tried to go anywhere or do anything together, by a body showing up on the scene. Monsieur Bernier had said, on the side, after Julia had departed and was out of earshot, that 'their coroner' was too skinny, "those words, definitely those exact words," William remembered, thinking on, "Then… Oh yes," the outspoken, overly chummy man had rambled on – suddenly becoming aware that something was wrong by the reaction on William's face. Then the exact memory landed, Monsieur Bernier had said that Mrs. Bernier had 'some meat on her bones…' And then he had joked that he liked to know she would survive an angry, cold winter while he was away on his expeditions.'_ And then, thank goodness, _William remembered his response_ , he remembered what it was that he had said to Bernier!

He cleared his throat, it would be a challenge to speak rather than to moan. "I remember feeling so terribly awkward…" William started to explain.

Julia laughed, "I wouldn't doubt it, William," she said, rising up off of his chest, increasing the distance between them once more.

But William felt their connection down lower, _quite keenly_ , and he was certain Julia could feel underneath her that he had become _eager_ , and at the same time he also felt the coldness of the room sweep in to replace the lush warmth of her on his now bare, and lonely, and quite damp, chest.

Needing to clear his throat again, he continued to try to answer her earlier question, "Bernier had commented about how ' _ **our coroner**_ ' was pretty enough, but too skinny…"

Julia took his hands and brought them up to cup her breasts.

" _Cotton, the fabric_ ," William noticed, trying NOT to notice the other things he could feel within his fingers, like _how round and heavy and utterly delectable…_ and a wave of lust began to drop him, and with all his might he stopped the inevitable fall. He froze his movements, swallowed – hard, and returned to his telling her about Monsieur Bernier, and his answer to the man's claim that she was too skinny. "Bernier told me that his own wife was _**meatier**_ …" William's hands pressed in, mushing her delicious breasts to bulge and fill in the gaps between his fingers, and Julia's breath caught, and a bolt shot straight to his groin. _William chuckled inside at his trouble resisting_ and then went on, his breathing a bit more labored as he said, "And Bernier said that he liked his women that way. And then I told him that ' _our coroner'_ happened to also be _MY wife_ , and it was understood between us, Julia, between myself and Monsieur Bernier, I promise you that, that _ **I**_ like _**MY**_ women to be just like you…" William took a breath and added, "And then Bernier just dismissed the whole exchange, shrugging it off with a simple, "To each his own." William wrinkled a corner of his mouth, regretting there wasn't more to it when all was said and done.

Julia teased him, "And so, you defended my honor then?"

She sensed his frown, expecting she wanted more. "Julia, I knew that Monsieur Bernier had never seen you naked…that the man had no idea… He couldn't possibly… Sometimes, Julia, I find myself so struck, so taken, by how beautiful you are that I lose my ability to speak, to think, even to brea…"

William's ability to make words halted right there, for his wife had begun to unbutton HER own nightgown now, and he wanted more than anything in the world, to touch, to feel her silky skin as he squeezed and squished her body with his, to get his mouth on her, to taste her flesh _deep back_ on his tongue, to mold, and to push into, this scrumptious, scrumptious woman, so that the whole of the world spun out of control… the last words disappearing in his mind, " _Too skinny, my a**…"_

Sweltry, their lovemaking had been that night, the second night he had gotten home too late from Davies Slaughterhouse.

)

Lying in bed next to her, William huffed quietly, frustrated that he was unable to fall asleep. Julia was long gone, sleeping sound and content, as he would normally be after such a powerful bout of lovemaking. His lips pinched together in the darkness, admitting it to himself, he was feeling guilty, guilty for not phoning her like he should have tonight, for taking the risks he had taken, and strangely at the same time he felt ashamed of not taking more, and in the dark and the late, sleep and awake mingled.

He recognized it as it was unfolding…

 _It was the remembering of the time he had died in the bathtub_. He was delightfully weightless, _floaty_. **He'd seen all the cards laid out in front of him – him both the dealer sitting at the table laying out each card, and the player standing on the other side of the table, but floating almost up to the ceiling, awaiting his fate, seeing his life story in the cards. All of the cards that were dealt were exactly the same one, laid out in a row – all the same queen. At first, he had thought they were all the** _ **ONE**_ **card he had expected –** _ **the Queen of Hearts**_ **… and he knew, with a breathtaking thump in his chest, that it was** _ **HER**_ **… that, of all of the cards, in his whole life,** _ **Julia had always been the ONE**_ **. But then he noticed, like a hint breathing the sad truth into his ear, that the hearts on all the cards next to the queens' faces were** _ **black-colored**_ **, and so quickly his focus adjusted to be able to see what it was that he had missed. "** _ **They were not red hearts at all**_ **," his observations demanded he see the truth, but instead they were** _ **upside-down hearts**_ **, in reality –** _ **spades, spades, the suit that always landed with such power and coldness in the soul**_ **. And he thought to himself that they were the cards he** _ **HAD**_ **actually chosen, representing the path that he** _ **had**_ **taken as opposed to the path he COULD HAVE taken. He had been given the opportunity to choose the Queen of Hearts, he had chosen otherwise, and he had done so more than once. The ache of regret threatened to burn a hole right through his chest.**

 **Those early choices had left him a life that was black and lifeless. His queen, the one he had ended up with in the end, because of his choice, his terrible, life-altering choice back when SHE had written him that heartwrenching note, and yet he still chose to let her marry Darcy, was the Old Maid, the one that was destined to be alone, the one with no match… And William knew that** _ **that**_ **card was he himself, NOT Julia, that he was his only queen. He was intelligent, respected, even admired, competent and accomplished, careful,** _ **but completely alone.**_

A wish to turn away from it, William rolled in the bed, floating just under the blurry film of consciousness, and he thought on…

 _His most life-changing regret had been revealed to him in those cards, all those years ago, that he saw laid out by himself on that table while he hovered above his dead body down in the basement in the bathtub, and that regret was that he had lost her._

 _And then a thought hit him, "if the Queen of hearts would have been Julia, then the Queen of Spades was Julia…" And then he thought it – it nearly killed him, but he thought it – HIS decision had hurt HER too, "it had cost HER the ONE match that was a perfect fit for her, he had left Julia to live a life as the Old Maid too, because of his choice!"_

Closer to awake now,the theft of his breath, the movement of absorbing the shock of the disastrous discovery stirring him **,** William realized that _he had NOT yet grasped this consequence, this truth, back when he had had his divine vision, floating up on that ceiling, Julia somewhere else in the world, someone else's wife, living in her loveless marriage. He had discovered it now, now,_ while he lay in bed with her _\- the impossibility of that contradiction seeming so strange it wrinkled his brow…_ **he drifted back down deeper as his thoughts moved on.**

" _ **She could not be the Queen of Spades**_ **," he argued with himself, seemingly now back completely in the time when he was floating on the ceiling, "** _ **because it is the Old Maid Card, and she IS married, married to a toff, a doctor like herself, who can give her the life she is more accustomed to than I ever could have."**_ **But, "** _ **Oh God, it hurt…"**_ **for in the same second he knew that she was unhappy in that marriage, destined to remain that way, stuck because of HIS decision. He thought back to the two choices – the one letting her go to Buffalo, the other choosing to free Constance Gardiner rather than stop her wedding.** His face twitched, pulling him back up closer to consciousness, as he wrinkled it doubting himself. **Then he thought that** _ **he would make the same choice again – freeing Constance Gardiner essential in order to be a man good enough for her, for himself, for God, despite the fact that it could still cost him imprisonment some day for breaking the law. "Besides**_ **," reasoning piped in, "** _ **the decision you would change – the letting her go to Buffalo without trying to stop her, proposing marriage, telling her how you feel about her – that decision would have meant she never would have married Darcy in the first place."**_

Again a wrinkle twitched – he had imagined being more forceful with her that terrible day when **she told him she was sterile in the morgue and plummeted his world into mayhem and fear,** and he felt an ounce of shame, thinking she would see him as an arrogant, entitled MAN who thinks he can make a woman do whatever he wants… but then he thought, _and it was so beautiful and it was so true and it meant he HAD hurt her in not fighting for her back then_ , because he knew now, that he would not have been insisting that she hear him, that she stay with him, because he was _**A**_ _ **man**_ , but rather he would have been insisting she stay with him because he was _**THE**_ _ **man**_ , and that, he knew, would have made the difference. He had chosen wrongly, fearing being too aggressive, overpowering, forceful, demanding… h **is choice instead to be GOOD in his own eyes, in God's eyes, in Julia's eyes. William's soul filled with tears and his throat swelled shut. He had lived his life as a GOOD man, he did not murder (and yet his finger twitched remembering squeezing the trigger on the gun as he fired it, and hearing the tiny, silent 'click,' and Gillies remaining unharmed), even deeper inside of him, his soul twitched, (thinking of Julia's womb, growing 'the Murdoch Bump,' twice, two times he had begged her to end the life growing inside of her.)** _ **Being good was complicated**_ **, he had come to see…**

 **Suddenly he remembered freeing Constance Gardiner.**

 **And then suddenly, it was Chief Inspector Giles wearing his striped prison uniform, who was dealing the cards to him from the other side of the table – and now, that little table had switched too, the table in the room atop the bathtub where he floated on the ceiling above his lifeless body, it had changed into the big one in the Interrogation Room in the stationhouse…**

 **Immediately, there was another switch, quiet and smooth,** _ **nothing strange about it**_ **, and William was hanging up on the meathook again, like before, reflecting of his decisions before he died… his choices that had gotten him into this hopeless predicament – about to be sliced in half in the cold dark inside the bowels of Davies Slaughterhouse, and rendering Julia to be abandoned, alone and grieving, and William Jr., his beautiful unborn child, to never know his father…**

Oddly, he was awake enough to think to himself, reflecting on his almost dying on that meathook that day, that the previous comfort, the one he had felt of knowing the beauty and wonder of dying from his divine vision while dying in the bathtub, it had been meaningless in the face of such regrets, such guilt.

So close to being awake now, William reminded himself that _**this time**_ when he had taken the risk of sneaking into Davies Slaughterhouse _**he had chosen better**_ , _he had chosen to be true to the Lady he loved when he chose tonight to leave Davies Slaughterhouse, NOT to risk his life for the case. He had done it for her. He was so glad he had done it._

 **Sleep descended, bringing to life the stench of dead pig carcasses so nauseating it curled his nostrils, and reminded of the excruciating pain in his shoulder from hanging on the hook.** His thoughts invaded back to demand his attention, wakeful twitches of thoughts mixed in. _So much had changed since that first time, since he had gone out into Sinclair's "Jungle." He wondered if it wasn't because of William Jr. being born, being a part of their life now. And now, now there was a second child on the way…_ **And intrusively in the background of his mind, fear crept up, rose up to squeeze his heart.** _ **"JULIA COULD DIE," it whispered.**_

 _It must be that he was back asleep_ … **The William that sat at the table – the dealer, turned the card, turned the card over again, and he watched, like last time when he floated up on the ceiling facing death, "** _or was it on the ceiling hanging from the meathook facing death?" the question suggested from somewhere._ **The Queen of Hearts,** _ **"this time it really was the Queen of Hearts, not spades,"**_ **and he knew it was Julia again, that he had gotten her back! And then the sinking feeling that followed as he also knew that she would die from trying to have this baby, and once again, he would have missed the opportunity to save her, for he could have insisted she abort it.**

 **Wham, he was suddenly freezing cold, barefoot in only his pajamas outside standing at the foot of their front porch steps. He looked up to see his younger self floating on the ceiling again and he thought, first losing her to Buffalo, and then to Darcy, now losing her and this child to his indecisiveness, AGAIN, his lack of forcefulness, leaving William Jr. motherless, all because he had made a bad choice, to let things be, to trust.** _ **My God, it cost so much**_ **, could cost him everything, everything that he took each and every breath for.**

" _ **Not everything,"**_ **he heard that knowing voice inside his head remind him,** _ **for now there was William Jr. in the world too.**_

 **He heard a sound, distinct, in the distance –** _ **chickens clucking**_ **.**

 **Instantly he thought, feeling the change, knowing he was somewhere else, no longer floating on the ceiling above the bathtub, or standing outside in the freezing cold barefoot, or hanging from the meathook… So odd, his brow wrinkled. He was still in the stink of the pig carcasses in the slaughterhouse as the thought came** _ **, "I didn't know they slaughtered chickens here too?"**_

 **Suddenly, William had BECOME a big chicken – he WAS a huge, oversized, chicken, riding along with pig after pig after pig on a conveyor belt, the belt moving incredibly fast.**

" _ **Can't get off**_ **…" the breathless thought disappeared into the haze of the room with the speed. He spotted Julia out in the room. "** _ **She's distracted by something, she doesn't know I'm in danger, doesn't see me at all, so distracted.**_ **He looked where she was trying to reach. "** _ **An egg! It's an oversized, giant, Egg. "Why is Julia trying to get an egg…?"**_

 _ **So strange**_ **, he thought to himself that** _ **HE**_ _ **had laid it…**_

 **Julia turned to look at him, their eyes met.**

 **With a jolt, the conveyor belt suddenly stopped.** _ **He could get off now!**_ **Without thinking anything peculiar about it, he was simply himself again, not a chicken.**

" **I want this baby, William," Julia cried to him across the room, pleading for his help.**

 **The tininess and incongruence of the sound amplified it – a little, tiny, bell tinkling its warning in the distance – somewhere up near the ceiling.**

 _ **William knew this bell, knew what would happen next**_ **, for it had been the recurring nightmare that had haunted him during his childhood –** _ **"AND NOW IT HAD COME TRUE!"**_

 **His heart raced and his mind flurried.** _ **"Three seconds – we only have three seconds until IT appears…" ("**_ **It" being the dark, shadowy, skeletony, hooded monster of his childhood dreams).** _ **The 'soul-thief,' was on the prowl**_ **. "** _ **We have to hide – NOW!**_ **" his brain screamed in terror.**

" **Julia," he screamed out, flying off of the conveyor belt to grab her, to pull her to him, with him, to hide before it appeared.**

 **She resisted him, crying, "No! No, William. The Egg!"**

" **There's not time!" he insisted.** _ **Only one second left, and a part of him considered overpowering her, forcing her.**_ **"Julia PLEASE! I can't bear it," William whispered and screamed and wailed his pain at her, and she yielded to it, her heart breaking, for she left the Egg, she let it go FOR HIM.**

 **He rushed her over to the conveyor belt, ducked down and tucked her in with him underneath it** _ **, its stillness reminding that time only stood still for the littlest tick of a second, even if it felt like eons.**_

 **Poof! The soul-thief materialized, sucking all the air out of the room.** _ **He had the eternity of three seconds, three seconds, to find a victim.**_

 **William worried that he would see a foot, or hear them breathing. With a panicked lightning bolting through him, he realized Julia was crying.**

" **Shh," he tried to shush her. Even closer to her ear, tears in his eyes, so quiet his whisper, "Shh, Julia. Please. Shh. Shh."**

" **I wanted that baby, William," she squeaked and gasped out her regrets.**

 **Impossible, his heart jumped even faster, sparked by a horrendous terror the likes of which he had never known –** _ **IT HAD HEARD HER!**_

 **The soul-thief turned, oriented, aimed their way.**

" _ **It was coming! Too much time left. Homed in, it would take Julia!"**_

 **Another silent sound** **cracked** **the ringing in his ears.**

 **Every attention darted to the Egg –** _ **trying only to be born.**_

" **The baby!" Julia screamed, the soul-thief already approaching it.**

 _ **It was doomed – their baby was doomed if he tried to save it, doomed if he did not…**_

 **Poof! The soul-thief was gone…**

 **That odd, terrifying halted time had run out. The monster's three seconds had passed.**

 **William had not needed to decide… had not truly confronted the dilemma of facing his fears or fighting the tigerous soul-thief.**

 **Gratefully, he and Julia were moving again – being taken, carried forward, both of them together again on the conveyor belt. Julia was rubbing her belly. He looked down.** _ **She was pregnant**_ **! Not concerned with how he knew, he was certain that the baby that had been inside the Egg was now safe inside Julia, growing.** _ **She was so happy it brought tears to his eyes. He loved her so. He wanted nothing more than for her to be happy.**_ **Yet still, he felt the fear.** _ **Lord, he prayed it would be alright.**_ _ **"No choice now but to ride out the path…"**_

 **Suddenly, Chief Inspector Giles, still in his boldly striped prison uniform, was on the conveyor belt in front of them dealing the cards. "** _ **Actually**_ **," William noticed, "** _ **all the people on the conveyor belt were in striped prison uniforms…**_ **" Absolute horror when he saw it – "** _ **Julia was in stripes too…! Her abortion!"**_ **his head screamed the explanation to him.**

" _ **Giles is dealing the cards now, instead of me…"**_

" _ **The game Giles is playing is Bridge,**_ **" William noticed, trying to calm down by focusing on the facts.**

 **Prisoner Giles spoke as he dealt, telling the rules, "Loyalty is the only moral instinct that can exist on the same plane as truth itself. They may clash, but one can never TRUMP the other without cost…"**

 **And William heard himself reply in the dream, "Yes, but LOVE can trump them both, can it not? Love can trump loyalty to God and Faith, loyalty to others, and love can trump truth as well. My love for Julia wins, it always wins, in the face of…" and suddenly William was thinking in his head, no longer speaking out loud, "…** _ **her breaking the law and choosing to have an abortion, and still my love for her trumped my loyalty to justice, and even more, my love for her wins when I ACCEPT her sin, the taking of the life of an innocent, budding, child. Julia broke the law, and in doing so she sinned, and still, my love pushed me past those things…"**_

 **But then William noticed that** _ **the stripes on prisoner's uniforms were changing colors, changing from dull grays to stark orange and black, "and the texture… the stripes were getting fuzzier, furrier…?"**_

 **On the conveyor belt, all the prisoners were becoming tigers – caged tigers, a threat, but contained. And, although he and Julia and Chief Inspector Giles seemed to be staying human as all the other prisoners on the conveyor belt continued morphing into real-life, man-eating tigers –** _ **he worried that he and Julia might change too, if God had decided that they were both to be damned for their sins…**_

 **But they did not change, and now all those tigers, they were in the same cage as William and Julia, and he was suddenly thronged with the urge to protect her with all his force, to his last breath,** _ **for Julia was in grave danger**_ **.**

 **It was Giles who saw his panic. He offered William a lambchop, suggesting he use it to save his wife from the nearest, most ravenous and carnivorous, tiger…** _ **The one right behind Julia on the conveyor belt.**_ **"Throw it out there…" Giles gestured wildly out into the vastness of the world, "to get him off the scent," he yelled over the wind, the bars of the cages that had been keeping them trapped with the prisoners on the conveyor belt now all simply gone.**

 **William tossed the lambchop out, threw it away with all the power he could muster, and the closest tiger flew off the conveyor belt after it. It had worked, they were safe.**

 **But then he noticed that there was a place of the floor that was buckling upward, rising, splintering apart.**

 **Suddenly, the wood cracked opened, and up from the ground, a wild, man-eating, terrifying tiger rose, bellowing out a harrowing roar.**

 **Its growls rose the hair on the back of the neck as that tiger rose up through the floor, and turned and took aim at them, and a part of William thought about** _ **how odd it was for a tiger to have been buried in the ground in the first place**_ **, and then he suddenly knew that** _ **the beast was the result of HIS buried guilt, his buried regrets, his buried fears, things that HE had tried to bury away rather than address.**_ **And William found himself struggling, so very, very hard, to decide if that rising tiger, if the things HE had done and not fully dealt with in the past, were a danger to them… more importantly, a danger TO HER!**

 **The tiger rose all the way up and leaned back on its haunches, readying to pounce…**

 **William felt a rush jolt his heart filling him with a sense of astounding strength, for he knew down to his deepest core,** _ **he had proven it at another time – back when he had almost died in James Gillies' cage, a subject in the disturbed nemesis' experiment**_ **,** _ **William knew he would die for her, he most surely would.**_ _ **He would fight that tiger to the death if need be for her**_ **. And that's when he turned to look, to see if Julia was frightened…**

… _and Julia was gone – vanished._

 **William stood staring, paralyzed with pain and disbelief, staring at the place where she had been standing, where, now, there was nothing left but thin air.**

 **He looked up to the ceiling, to himself floating up there when he was younger, so sad from his regretting not telling her that he loved her, not asking her to marry him, NOT telling her that she was the ONE for him. There was accusation in his voice as his younger self said to him, tearfully yelled it to him, "You did NOTHING again!" and the hurt of it, of knowing he was right, brought searing tears to his eyes, and the torrents overflowed and trickled down his cheeks, for William knew he had lost her, forever this time. Julia had died…** _ **SHE WAS GONE,**_ **lost while he was distracted by the tiger, and he knew that he had lost his chance to save her, to choose, his Lady.**

"Daddy?" William Jr.'s sweet little voice summoned…

" _I must've slept through his knocking…"_ William's own startled voice in his head rationalized the unexpected presence of their toddler son. With a jerk, William was abruptly awake.

 _But there was no William Jr. in the room… Julia was next to him… in their bed… still sleeping. "It's still dark – still early…"_ It rolled and rumbled, his grounding. _Memories from what had been just prior poured through his head. He had been having such a strange dream… and he remembered he had gotten home late last night… "Davies Slaughterhouse," the memory landed, "The case – the case with the victim at our body farm, chopped up…!"_

Pools of tears filled his eyes as a humungous wave of emotion overtook him, overwhelming him with a tremendous impulse to tell her _he was so, very, very sorry,_ that _he loved her so astoundingly, breathstaggeringly much that sometimes he thought he might die from it…_ And he laid there, fighting that urge, and he noticed that he was holding his breath, and he knew it was for two reasons – first, for fear that it would wake her to make the sound of taking that breath, and second, because he sensed that upon letting go, that once he released the exhale, the intensity of the ache in his heart would flare the embers smoldering in his chest into the agonizing blaze that he knew was waiting there.

He fell back into what, for him, was most reliable – _logic, details, clues_ , and the emotions responded, eventually, to gravity, sinking downward, becoming tolerable once again. William asked himself about his crazy dream, his exacting mind intrigued, and meanwhile over in another part of him, as all those tumultuous emotions settled, a deeper feeling became conscious for a brief second, drawing his attention – _he felt ashamed,_ and the two pathways emerged together into the one question, " _Why would I dream that I was a big chicken?_ " and then the second meaning of the words, the less literal meaning, hit him, and he understood that the shame was because he had been frightened, and he had given into that fear tonight, tonight after sneaking into Davies Slaughterhouse. _**That was it!**_ _– He was ashamed of being 'a big chicken.'_ William settled back down deeper into his pillow, figuring _– for now_ – that he had found the core of this shame that was sickening his insides, seeing it as a reaction to his decision NOT to crawl through that window from the roof into the Davies Slaughterhouse manager's office, or even to check the garbage bins for the naked victim's clothes. It made perfect sense. And with that, it felt acceptable, bearable.

He sighed to himself in the dark, his thoughts moving on. It was because of this shame that he remained stiff and rigid next to Julia in their bed. He had chosen NOT to wake her, had decided that he did Not want her to join him downstairs for hot chocolate and to talk it through. It was Not worth the risk to his pride.

Stuck there, not taking a chance of getting up out of the bed, thinking it would probably wake Julia if he did so, his mind ran amuck with the hunt, for on a deeper level William knew that the 'big chicken' inside of him was not simply afraid of being caught at Davies. There was something more to it, rising up in him.

It was just under the surface of his awareness, like looking down into a frozen lake and seeing it under the top layer of ice. Such focus, he dove for grasping it. And then he just knew, _he had held his tongue, too afraid to risk speaking up, being forceful, demanding she abort this second child. He had been silenced by her enthusiasm and wishing, and Dr. Tash's insistence the risks were tolerable, and the belief in the science he was being cited by both his own wife and her longtime friend and colleague, accepting that they knew better that he did in such medical matters. But, he was afraid – very, Very, VERY afraid, that his choice to give up his power, to let her try to have this baby, had been wrong._ _He should have done what she had offered that freezing cold night, the two of them barefoot out on the front porch steps – he should have insisted she keep her word to him and have an abortion, for no other reason than because he decided so._

And, even deeper underneath that fear there was another more eternal one, for William realized, becoming wholly terrified lying there silently, stiff and locked into stillness, that he was afraid that even his own being _**willing**_ to do such a sinful thing would mean he would be damned to eternal Hell, and the sickening feeling erupted with the thought that followed, for he realized now, he was also so terribly afraid that he would _**NOT**_ be damned, because he believed that Julia most surely would be, and he felt it in the depths of his soul, as a throbbing glowing ache, _he would rather be damned and be with her than be in Heaven without her._

He swallowed down the vile taste… lost now, was the sugariness of ignorance.

It was undeniable, a heart-seizing panic, lying there next to her in the shallow-breaths of silence, to feel that fear. " _Yes,_ " he answered himself, trying to find that internal logical voice he trusted, " _that was what the 'big chicken' was about…"_

 _The 'three seconds' tingled_ in his memory – _the dreaded childhood monster that came to rob your soul._ William sighed, thinking to himself that his dream told that _he may have been spared facing Hell, for he had not had a chance to decide to push Julia to have an abortion, and that was really just dumb luck in the end,_ _ **time running out… like in the dream,**_ _with the women at the Church figuring out Julia was pregnant, and news of their 'Murdoch Bump' completely titillating the papers._ Lying there, grown-up now, William knew that the seed of that frenzied childhood dream was his terror of his father losing control, hurting them in a drunken rampage, and his own childhood tuned-in reading of the signs, _like hearing at the door, the sound of the inebriated over-jingling of the keys in the lock, so much like hearing that tiny little tinkling of the bell in the dream. And, once the danger had been detected, then you were instantly shot into survival mode. A part of you knew that it wouldn't be forever, probably not even long, until the scary monster was gone with as little warning as when he came. You just needed to hide till then_. That's how his luck had been, a decision made or not made in that little tiny window of time where the consequences outweighed life itself, and so often, William had defaulted to not deciding.

But then, the memory arriving with the scent of freshly chopped wood deep in the back of his throat, and the sounds of an armful of small wooden logs cascading downward, clunking and knocking together, as they all fell to the floor – " _ **The firewood…**_!" the words landed in his brain with the heavy childhood memory…

And then there was a sound, oddly inside but seemingly outside as well, both screaming and barely audible, so that your body had to have been _in the space between things_ in order to hear it – between two breaths, between two heartbeats. It was a simple ' _ **click,**_ ' much like the sound a key makes when turning the mechanism deep inside of a rusty old lock, and _**William got it… He knew**_! And he would never be able to _**UN-know**_ it again. _There was a connection between his fear that Julia would die as a consequence of his timidity and clumsy inaction and his terrifying childhood dream, between his father's drunken raging and Julia's and his mother's deaths..._ _ **the firewood**_ _, and it hurt so badly, for even though William knew in his heart that it had not been intentional on his part, and that he had been just an eight-year-old little boy who was scared out of his wits, startled by his father's predatory mood, he understood now that it was one of_ _ **those**_ _pieces of firewood,_ _ **that HE had dropped on that floor beside the hearth, that had killed his mother in the end.**_ _It was HIS fault that it was left there when he went to hide from the monster, and SHE boldly confronted that monster – a force to be reckoned with – "_ _ **so much like Julia**_ _," he thought, somewhere else in his brain – and his mother had slipped on a piece of wood that he had dropped. And William knew now with a thud of certainty down into the marrow of his bones, that it wasn't his father hitting his mother and knocking her down to hit her head on the hearth that had led to her death – that instead she had hit her head after slipping on HIS dropped firewood, and she had drowned in the lake later from the concussion of that, and so it was HIM who was responsible, because he had been 'chicken,' and now he sensed Julia would die in a similar manner, HIM too afraid of his own manly aggression to have insisted that she abort the child he believed would kill her in childbirth – his seed growing inside of her, HIS seed, His inaction, killing her in the end._

William sighed, then allowed himself to shift his position slightly, feeling that odd contradiction of the profound discovery stretching him upward, lightened him with the relief of grasping the cause, but also sinking him downward, substantially burdening him with fully understanding the effect.

Another dream, remembered, softening the blow of this one. _An older dream – that one, too, with Chief Inspector Giles, that time the game was Chess instead of Bridge, Julia his Queen, and on the chessboard, gigantic, over-sized chess-pieces, all trying to kill her from every which direction…_

And then he remembered _the body, moaning, alive but wrapped in burlap, in the corner of their bedroom…_

" _Had that been the same dream…?"_ the question disappeared.

" _It was Julia…!"_ he remembered, of the bound-up and damned body in the corner. _In that dream, too, she had been destined for Hell._ And William felt it distinctly, feeling so ashamed _that SHE would be condemned for doing THE SAME THING that he was willing to do, but in his case it had never actually happened merely because he had been too weak, too cowardly, and because time had run out. And what made his shame, his disgrace, even worse was that Julia had been the ONE who stopped HIS own sin, stopped HIM from insisting on the abortion, with her wanting their baby so much! Oh, that hurt down to the bone._

He hadn't noticed, Julia's breathing had changed.

Julia found herself suddenly awake, alerted to William being home, in the bed next to her. Somehow, she knew he was awake. She rolled into her position, her arm and leg over him, her head on his shoulder. " _He's stiff as a board_ ," she noticed, and her heart felt the tug of worry for him, love for him.

"William…" her voice loud, compared to the long, dark silence, "Are you alright?" she asked.

She knew him so well, she was completely aware of his 'admitting-it' wrinkle at the corner of his mouth.

"Bad dream?" she asked, her fingers beginning a soothing tour of his pectoral muscles through the comfy fabric of his pajamas.

William laughed, _embarrassed,_ and then he told her, "Yes. I was a big chicken, you were trying to save a giant egg, and then there was a huge tiger that rose up through the floor to get us…"

"Well," she said, propping her head up to look into his face in the shadows of the room, "That IS quite a dream."

It was the sound of his breath that changed the mood. William's tone was solemn as he said, "I lost you, in the end."

"I see," she responded. She remembered _him out on the front porch bench in the freezing cold – drinking whiskey because of that same fear._ And she remembered _all the times she had sobbed to him, so totally crushed by how much she loves him and her own fear of losing him, always after they had made love together and they were so close that they were one rather than two, and she knew she would never survive the loss of him_. Somehow, all of that was conveyed in those simple words she had just said to him… _**"I see."**_

William cleared his throat to speak, and he pressed her gently back down to his chest, wanting a little distance, the truth he would tell her now taking some courage. "I have been very troubled, I guess…" his face wrinkled again, "And I, I… well, I didn't want to worry you, to burden you, with the baby and all…"

Julia lifted up again, tipped her head close to his. "William…"

 _There was such strength and warmth in her presence…_

"I'd rather worry WITH you than worry ABOUT you," she said, cupping his cheek in the dimness. Gently, she gave him a kiss.

And although he would never have thought it possible, William felt a deepening of his trust settle into his heart, trust in this amazing woman at his side. First, a little twitch of a smile, then his mouth wrinkled again. And then he told her, told her that he was terribly worried, still, that she would have… "problems, with the birth…" and then he paused calling on himself to hold his nerve, and he said, "Sometimes I wish… I regret, not holding you to your promise… to have the abortion if I pushed you to…"

 _Oh, with a wallop, he instantly regretted telling her._

He rushed to ease, "But only sometimes," he said, pulling her closer. "And there's nothing to be done now, anyway. We'll have to just hope."

Julia remained lying over him and she heard his heart beating against her ear, and she became keenly aware of his holding of his breath, _William's suffering_ _aching her heart_. She took a deep breath herself hoping he would follow her lead, and then she rubbed at his heart inside his big, strong chest, and she tenderly kissed at his heart through his cottony-soft pajamas, willing with all her might to heal it.

" _Oh, thank God_ ," she thought, hearing him respond – hearing him take a breath.

And now it was her turn to ease. "William," she started, "I promise you, as soon as I reach the halfway point, four-and-a-half months, and from that point on, because once I'm there we all know I would have to have a Cesarean section even if the baby was lost and I was miscarrying, we'll have Isaac close at hand. He's already agreed. And I'll always stay with someone – not let myself be alone, so we can be certain that I could get to the hospital right away. I promise, from that day until the baby comes," her voice pleaded and reassured all in one, "Alright?" she asked.

She loved him so that tears stung her eyes, for he gave her his ' _sorry'_ face, his ' _admitting-it_ ' face, _that same face he gave her when she first saw him safely back from Bristol England, that face that melted her down to her soul._ And he then kept it short and simple with his words, as could be his way. _**"Good,"**_ all he said, locking them tight together, together, where they both knew that they would always be alright, come what may.

)) ((


	20. 20: In the Shadow of the TigerT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 20: In the Shadow of the Tiger_T

Hearing his slow, heavy, breaths, attesting to the depth of his sleep, Julia had gotten quietly out of their bed, tiptoed around it to turn off William's alarm, and then tiptoed out to wake William Jr. and ready him for the day. The gift she gave the man she loved was only a half an hour of extra sleep, but " _William's night had been hard,"_ she reminded herself with a sigh, _home late from risking investigating Davies Slaughterhouse, once again_ _ **after it had closed!**_ _That same horrid, reeking place where he had faced death, precariously, painfully, while hanging from a meathook, all of that confronted all over again._ _And then afterwards, as her psychiatry training would have predicted, he had had disturbing nightmares, undoubtedly triggered by doing much the same thing that he had done back when he and Constable Jackson had gotten caught the first time – back when she was pregnant with William Jr. – her being pregnant again this time only adding to the facts that tightly aligned the associations encountered with his experiences last night to the original trauma._

The half an hour spent, with her beautiful 'Little One' dressed and sent down to the playroom with Claire-Marie to build his Daddy "a surprise" with his ' _Never Lego'_ blocks before breakfast, she sighed, for it was time to wake William.

" _Such lovely low light in their bedroom this time of day,"_ she noticed, as she quietly closed the door behind her. _William had rolled over_ , his black hair peeked out of the top of the covers, stark against the white of his pillow.

Her deep breath added fuel to the glow she felt in her chest, and she paused in the warm sensations of being content for the moment. Her eyes glanced to the window. _She would see the day_ , she thought as she pulled her nightgown off over her head, tossing it to the bed as she walked across their bedroom floor, and her naked skin felt the first brush of the colder air waft in all around her.

Her surprised gasp fluttered into the room as she drew the curtain back, _"It had snowed!"_ the sight captured her, the soft pillowy whiteness everywhere, blanketing the ground, striping all the crisscrossed tree branches, fresh and breathtaking, the whole scene rosied by the dawn light.

Her mind imagined playing in that snow, with William and their little son. " _A sled,"_ she thought…

Peripheral, _just at the corner of her eye_ , she must have caught his movement, and Julia knew William was ' _looking.' Oh, how she loved it when he 'looked,'_ the thrill charged through her body. She hadn't noticed until that moment, but her hand been lovingly stroking and caring and soothing the tiny baby growing inside of her. She wondered to herself again if the newspaper acclaimed 'bump' was nothing more than her having had worn an unbecoming dress that day, that and her deciding to start wearing looser corsets. She imagined William admiring her shape. A hint of a wicked smile curled on her lips, unnoticed by her husband who was 'looking' elsewhere.

"Oddly fetching, is it not, this little Murdoch Bump?" she broke the silence in the room, tweaking that place directly down low in his primal zone as she turned to him and gave him a seductive wiggle, her bosoms penduously jiggling and bouncing, just a bit behind the motion.

 _Caught – no denying it,_ William accepted the unspoken charges, his bedroom eyes lifting to meet hers. Just at the edge, in the back of his mind somewhere behind the delight of heightening arousal, a memory tickled… _Similar words, same gesture,_ from his sultry wife then too, _"It's oddly fetching…" he heard her say it,_ and then the memory landed, " _It was the corset!"_ _Yes, the deadly corset,_ _right before it nearly squeezed all of the life out of her,_ a wave of guilt bolted through him, as William also remembered that _HE had not noticed, thus putting her in grave danger, going to get hot chocolate, the unexpected knock at the door of their hotel suite the stimulus that had caused the corset to constrict, HIM happily just walking away from her while she gasped like a dying fish out of water, then being utterly shocked upon seeing her so helpless down on the floor…_

Meanwhile, inside her head, Julia was fighting the urge to go to him, to tempt him into making love. She reminded herself as much as her husband, "I'm afraid we do not have time, detective," her tone flirtatious despite the meaning of her words. "The price of the extra sleep, I suppose," she added, intending to lighten the blow with an endearing wrinkle at the corner of her mouth.

She received his nod.

William tossed the covers aside and took a deep breath before rising. He reached up and rubbed his pillow-mushed hair at the back of his head. "The extra sleep was lovely," he said, and then he made her chuckle, for he gave her his full-face-wrinkled 'doubting-it' look, when he added, "Expensive though."

Approaching him, for it was safe now, the two of them in agreement that they would _not_ be indulging this morning, Julia's shadow covered him as she walked across the room to him, as a shadow can do when it is long from the light so low in the sky. Next to him, she held her hand out. He took it and stood before her, then wrapped his arms around her, sternly reminding himself _NOT to become aroused, for his gorgeous wife was naked, and they had not… and they usually did, and so it would be tempting._

)

Downstairs, the Murdoch's enjoyed breakfast in their kitchen. The Tiger Rose bloom added cheer to the center of the kitchen table, soft and lush, now two days old, but still beaming its beauty out into the world. William read one of two papers Eloise had brought for him, a tradition he and the housekeeper shared, only more than one newspaper if the headlines were particularly of interest. Eloise was busy in the background, at the stove, readying utensils and such, serving. It was Friday and her employers were Catholic, so there would be no bacon or sausage today. She had decided on French Toast and Fried Eggs. The smells in the air were delicious.

As Eloise placed the maple syrup down on the table, Julia had a thought, taking a quick glance over at William. Her husband seemed wholly involved in reading the paper. There was an inhale, the thoughts beginning to connect in her head, and she found herself feeling grateful for the timing, the syrup reminding her that _there would_ _ **not**_ _be any pork today, no bacon with their French Toast_. And thus, William would not have to contend with, at least not for today, his possible return of an aversion to eating pork. She wondered if he had thought about it himself, _if William had worried about being reminded, in such a specific way, by finding himself nauseated about the thought of eating the meat on his plate, the flesh that he would never be able to unknow, so viscerally, resulted from such a torturous and horrendous end._ She remembered then that he had told her he had left his plans for his electric gun invention for her cousin Jonathan… and that thought sent her down a whole other trajectory, about the _irony of the astounding coincidences there could be in the world_ , for Jonathan Ogden was HER cousin, and he was also the same man who owned the vile meatpacking plant in Chicago where William had ended up working undercover while searching for clues in a case… A deep breath…

Eloise interrupted, placing their plates down. Surprisingly quickly, the sight of food on the plate, her mind resumed its quest. _William had left the plans for his electric gun with her cousin because he had been devastated by having been_ _ **the one,**_ _the first man, to get the pig on the meatpacking line. William had been_ _ **the one**_ _to put the innocent, unsuspecting, but already frightened, animal's hind foot into the chain that would lift it, upside-down, hoisting it into the air, breaking its bones and ripping open its joints, sending the animal into an agonous and hopeless attempt to free itself, killing William's soul each time with its bloodcurdling screams, and rendering the animal helpless for the slaughter that took too long to come, too long to come._ Julia found herself sickened, and dominoing thoughts began piling up behind this one, for she had decided to stop it there, to push the rest of the thoughts away, her final reflection on the matter back to a conclusion, _grateful that today was a Friday, and there was not any bacon on those two plates._

Eloise asked her, "Will Master Murdoch be having syrup?" Her mistress' pretty blue eyes lifted out of her thoughts.

The housekeeper held the syrup in one hand, and a bowl of soapy water and a cleaning cloth in the other, the older woman wisely prepared for a ' _yes_ ' should it come.

Picturing the answer more than thinking it, Julia saw their little son sitting next to her instead of in his baby high chair, his little feet kicking away as he happily ate his syrupy French Toast with them.

"Yes, but…" she turned to William, "Um…"

He lowered the paper, it occurring to him at that moment that he should share the headlines with her.

"William, could you please get the booster seat you made for William Jr.?" she requested, thinking it was about time to give it a try.

She could see in William's eyes that he had reservations. A twinge of worry surged through her, alerting her that they had moved into potential disagreement territory… " _William could be so rigid_ ," her brain reminded. She steeled herself, William seeing her face grow stern and her chin lift into that strong, stubborn position he knew so well.

He exhaled in an effort to bear with, to lessen, the sudden pressure. "Julia…" his tone suggested he was trying for being reasonable, and unfortunately, whenever he did this it made her feel like he was implying that she was the opposite, that she had been overcome by some sort of female hysteria that was threatening to explode. "The boy is not yet out of nappies," William laid out his main line of defense.

 _Of course, that was true._ The toddler sat there at this very moment wearing nappies, and the topic of toilet-training had only recent been such an ordeal, and the pressure in the room ramped up even higher.

 _Oh dear… Julia put her fork down…_

 _An extra vibration seemed to hum in the air, as if the shadows of the swirling storm clouds were fanning across the ground._

She felt his eyes on her, everyone's eyes on her, as she gazed down at her plate. Julia counseled herself to take a deep breath, the oxygen making more things possible in her mind. She felt it – the compassion re-filling her heart, as the memory fired in the forefront of her mind of their working this whole thing through a few days ago in her office at the University. Julia's eyes lifted to focus on the Tiger Rose in the center of the table. _She swore she felt William's eyes follow her there._

Julia swallowed, and told herself to soften, to trust, to trust him. After a deep breath she turned and reached out for his hand. Sitting as they did here at their kitchen table, around a corner from each other, his left hand the one she held, she always – _always, found herself awed by discovering his wedding ring, "So rare, a man who_ _ **chooses**_ _to wear one."_ She remembered that William had mentioned his concern about his decision to wear the symbolic ring when he first put it on his finger _– typical of William it was NOT that he was disappointed that other women would know he was taken and therefore would consider him out of bounds for their flirtations…_ inside, a little chuckle _, for SHE was grateful for just that, and if William had thought about it_ , she figured _, HE would have been too. No, it was because he feared "suspects would know he had a wife," and William worried that there was a chance that that "could lead to putting her in danger." He had never said it specifically, but James Gillies somehow seemed omnisciently present in the shadows of such a worry._

"Julia…" William called.

Her striking blue eyes jumped up from his ring on his finger to his big brown eyes.

An apology wrinkle of her face, _sorry for getting off track_ , it warmed them both even more.

William, too, had remembered, with the help of the Tiger Rose, their conversation about William Jr.'s stage of development and their toddler son's toilet-training troubles.

Julia leaned even closer to her husband, her voice low, giving intimacy. "We need to trust, to remember, to have confidence, that our little boy will master many things as he grows up. One is getting out of nappies…" she waited for his nod, grateful that he gave it without reluctance. She went on, elaborating, letting the hopes and expectations of a parent for their child dream forward, "He will learn to read, to write, to ride a bike, to do math… Knowing his father, very complicated math," she giggled. "He will learn to play sports and chess. And William, he will learn all these things and much, much, more in tandem, not necessarily mastering one before he can move on to the other. He will get out of his nappies, and he will master sitting at the table and eating with a fork as well…" Julia saw William's face already moving into the 'admitting-it' wrinkle and she smiled. "These accomplishments will not all be strictly mastered in the order we might expect, and not all at the same time, hmm?" she asked, already knowing his answer.

"Very good," he said, and then he put his newspaper down and pushed away from the table. He would go get the riser seat. William Jr. would eat at the table this morning – or at least try.

The detective paused behind his wife's chair and leaned down close to her ear. " _He whispered something sweet_ ," Eloise was sure of it, for whatever it was the detective had said to his wife, it rosied the doctor's face.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw as he walked away, Eloise at the stove shaking her head to herself. _"The woman was privy to so much_ ," William thought to himself, and then he surprised himself, because he felt an expansion in his heart, and he knew he was grateful for having Eloise in their lives, in their family.

)

His mother had been right, William Jr. was ready for this step. His yummy French Toast cut-up for him on the plate in front of him, a small amount of syrup making it sticky and sweet, he poked each tiny golden piece with his fork and managed to get it to his mouth with surprisingly little mess – for a first-time endeavor.

Satisfied things were going well with William Jr.'s fork-eating at the table experience, Julia asked about the newspaper headlines, and William instantly frowned.

"That bad?" she asked holding in her urge to chuckle.

He took a deep breath…

 _And she supposed so._

The crinkly sound of the paper opening in front of him prepared her, before he read, "Body Dumper Hacks Both Victim and Detective."

"Ouch," she replied.

He frowned again, then melted into that lovely 'admitting-it' face, erupting her into a warm laugh.

"And the other…?" she asked.

William switched the other newspaper from the bottom to the top. "They went with your idea," he gave her credit. Then he held the paper up for her to read it, which she did out loud…

"Return of Body Dumper _Stumps_ Murdoch," she said, "I see," she agreed making the connection to her use of "stump" as the pun yesterday in anticipation of what was to come.

Julia turned back to William Jr. "You're almost finished, Little One," she encouraged. Then she reached for the damp cloth, readying for the cleaning task to come.

With a sigh, she turned back to William and said with a glance at the newspaper, "I suppose it was to be expected."

He clamped his lips together and nodded. _Nothing now to do but prove them wrong_ , William's mind moved forward.

"Shall we share a cab…" he invited her company, "Surely there will be no bicycling today with the snow."

"Why, that would be lovely, detective," she replied with that flirty lilt that somersaulted his insides.

"Good," he answered.

And so the day began.

) (

Returning from his interviews of the workers at Davies Slaughterhouse, William stopped at the stationhouse front desk to retrieve his messages. The manager at Davies would not be in until the afternoon, so he could not completely rule out any suspicions that Davies Slaughterhouse was involved with their victim until then. William rubbed at his brow, his eyes glancing to his empty office. He had learned that the missing man he had thought might be their chopped-up victim had shown up for work this morning, rendering that line of enquiry a likely dead end. William paused for a second, trying to decide whether he was glad or disappointed about that particular turn of events in the case, his gut feeling relieved to be free of dealing with the vile place, the disturbing memories. " _Irrelevant_ ," his logical mind insisted, and he turned back to the facts as they were.

He could see his blackboard through the glass, tilted away from both the bullpen and the window to ensure that the clues he had gathered were not readily available to onlookers, newspaper reporters and such. A _flicker of the memory appeared in his mind of the chalky word "Pucker Fish" written on that same blackboard in his own hand… At the time the mistake giving away the murder weapon, the memory re-stirring feelings of regret and momentary stupidity._ He pushed himself to move on, _wishing he had more to go on_ …

And with that, he was already halfway to the morgue.

)

William could tell Julia had completed the postmortem as soon as he came into the morgue. She was at her desk and the body _… body pieces_ , waited, covered with a sheet on the morgue slab. He felt a wave of optimism flow through his body. _She would have something to show him_.

He greeted her, hat in hand, "Doctor," with a nod, "What have you?" he asked. _Julia truly was a stunning woman_ , he noticed as she looked up at him from her desk.

She gathered up her papers and placed them into the case folder and closed it up. Standing as a signal she was ready to begin, William hurriedly took off his coat and hung it on her coatrack, left his hat on her desk, and followed her as she walked him to the body. Out ahead of him down the steps into the morgue theater, she started, "When I examined what we have of his hands, I discovered a break in the neck of the fifth metacarpal… That would be the little finger," she added to make sure he understood. "Of his right hand…" she continued.

William knew there was more and so he simply nodded.

"The injury occurred before he was killed, but just barely, I would think…" Julia's eyes dropped down to William's right hand.

Instantly William felt the remembered sensation of the pain, and _Wham,_ the memory slammed into his mind, tightening his jaw, curling his knuckles. He remembered it all so clearly, Darcy Garland's words, malicious and spiteful in his face, " _Now, if she wants to_ _ **dally**_ _with you, detective, I won't stop her. But, if she's going to act like_ _ **a whore**_ _, she might as well be labelled…"_ It still amazed him _the strength of the sweet oozing through his whole body from the satisfaction of knocking that arrogant toff to the ground with a good, solid PUNCH…!_

By the time William looked back into Julia's face, his one hand rubbing the exact spot she had described in the victim on his other hand, William knew from the expression on her face that she, too, had made the same association. It caused him to wrinkle a corner of his mouth, for at least a part of him was sorry.

She leaned in close and cupped his cheek. " _It had been their first BIG fight_ ," she reminded herself with a sigh, then, _so lovely, later that night in his office, talking so much through, spending the night together on his reclining chair._

William clamped his lips together, and then wrinkled his gorgeous face once more, and Julia felt the ache of her heart stretching to fit even more love for him inside of it. There was a little tickle of a reminder that such intense moments as this one tended to become quickly uncomfortable for William Henry Murdoch, and so she took a deep breath and prepared to shift.

 _Enough of that_ , he focused back to the stump of an arm on the morgue slab.

 _Mind to the case_ , Julia explained, her voice professional in tone, "This is a common fracture seen in professional boxers, detective – the result of punching an immovable object. As our victim here had multiple older fractures of a similar nature, I would venture to suggest that he was a man who spoke with his fists."

"Or he was a boxer?" William offered.

Tentacles of the shared memory instantly charged through them both as a sly smile grew on Julia's face. "You do remember the large and vigorous size of a boxer's arms in that early case, detective," she teased.

He cleared his throat, "Of course, this man lacks the accompanied musculature," he gave, making an effort to avoid her play, to stay on course.

Her peek up at him rang seductive as she said, "Though, not all well-built men are boxers…" her pause gave time for her eyes to drop ever so subtly down to his chest before they returned to meet his and she went on, "I would contend that all boxers are very likely well-built men."

"I concur," he responded, already itchy to get back to the case, "And so, our victim was not likely a boxer, but perhaps a bit of a bully. Um, was there anything else of interest?" he pressed.

Julia frowned.

She saw the reaction, a look of worry on his face, and she knew, _with an internal giggle_ , that William was so focused on the case that he had misinterpreted her disappointment, a disappointment which was with his tedious focus on the case rendering him oblivious of her flirting, and instead was thinking that she had found a disturbing complication with the evidence at hand.

Her voice brightened as she informed, "There was something quite interesting…"

And William perked up.

She shifted the two of them down lower along the assembled pieces of the body, and then lifted the cover sheet away from the bottom left corner to reveal a grayed lower leg, complete with foot, chopped off at the knee. She had left it underside facing up. "Here…" her point guided his eyes to a mark behind what was left of the victim's knee.

William leaned closer and studied the mark intently. "An injection site, doctor?" he asked, _impressing her, for it was, but it was an odd one._

"Yes," she replied, and then added the details, "But, if it is, it was made with an unusually large needle. And see here…" they both tilted their heads closer as she circled her index finger around the center of the wound, "All this bruising around it…"

William interrupted her, his wide eyes drawing her to look into his face, "Much like when the hilt of a knife bruises around a stab wound…"

"Exactly," she said, with a breathlessness to her saying it that lured at him, as her big blue eyes caught his and darted back and forth, deepening into his. "Very observant, detective," she complimented.

 _Inside,_ her little giggle sparkled as he frowned _, her subtle flirtations mere distractions._

She smiled and lowered her attention back to the wound. "The syringe would have been applied with quite a strong force," she shook her head, "I'm not sure… I find I'm a bit puzzled by it, actually. Well, I'm not sure how he could have been so badly bruised by it…?"

William's mind did what it did sometimes, bolting off in multiple directions all at once. _There were similarities, feint ones, but similarities nonetheless, between this body and the one dumped on their property months ago - both having strange bruises on their legs._ Annoying, the niggles he felt, for he had been _unable to make anything significant out of the clue from that oddly-shaped bruise on the first victim's thigh_ , and he felt a waft of insecurity as he thought to himself that _he might fail with respect to this clue as well._

His attention turned back to his wife, trying to push aside his doubts, _blaming the newspaper headlines_ and telling himself _they simply did what was necessary to sell papers._

"Perhaps he accidently _**backed**_ into the syringe?" Julia had gotten to wondering.

"Or maybe he was thrown into it?" William suggested with a face wrinkle. And his mind raced to another memory, _of that Stationhouse #5 copper – Constable Townsend, fighting with a fellow constable behind a bar… "Oh yes, the victim – Constable Cooper – "Coop," had confronted Townsend about his raping a young Chinese girl…" And Townsend had flung the man into some glass which had stabbed through Cooper's femoral artery… Amazing, another wound on the victim's leg as the clue!_ William remembered, _it was the killer's efforts at saving the victim – making a tourniquet out of his shoe string, which had left a bruise above the stab wound. That had been the clue that had gotten him caught in the end._

Julia had seen William's expression change. Knowing his mind was elsewhere, she had waited. As William's eyes grounded, him now looking back at her, she added, "The track of the needle angles downward and goes right into the popliteal artery at the back of the knee, ultimately entering the blood vessel at a nearly parallel angle, so that whatever was in the syringe would have entered his bloodstream very quickly…"

William exclaimed, "Cause of death?!"

"Possibly," she answered. Julia puffed up, her pride showing, and told, "The maggots… Um, the same ones we used to determine that the body had been left somewhere warm enough to have flies in the midst of a cold winter…"

William nodded. "Yes doctor, the ones that led me to the horse stables slaughterhouses in the first place," he said.

She smiled and returned his nod, "Yes, detective. Well, the maggots would have ingested whatever was injected into the victim's body…" She smiled seeing that he was impressed. "I've sent some of the maggots along with a blood sample to a colleague at the University. It will probably be a few days…"

"Quite good, doctor," William beamed. His balloon deflated quickly though as he started to summarize the findings in his mind, for there was not much to go on right now, and William Murdoch was not one who liked waiting around for results.

He asked, "Is there anything else?" trying not to show his disappointment because she had more than held up her end. She knew him too well though, and he could tell that she could tell that he was hoping for more, and so he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her admitting it, and then wrinkled up more of his face to tell her he was sorry.

"I'm afraid that's all," she gave him his answer.

He took a deep breath, and his eyes strayed back to her desk up through the glass windows, to his hat and his coat. He clamped his lips at her, gave her a polite bow, "Very good," he said.

 _It was amazing that these two could still be awkward…_

Julia considered stepping out of character, trying to comfort him…

William thought about letting her…

 _Boom,_ he was up the steps, coat and hat in hand, and heading for the door.

"You're welcome, detective," she called after him.

He halted, turned back. "Yes… um, yes. Thank you doctor," he gave. And then he said, "I'll, uh, I'll see you at home… um, for dinner…" making her smile.

"Yes," she answered. And as the big morgue door banged shut and he was gone she thought, _"Thankfully still absent of pork_ ," and she washed her hands at the sink and got back to work.

) (

 _There was something rare about the way the man's mind worked – it completely marveled her sometimes_. And so it was that evening when she came to look in on William tucking their little son into bed. Julia Ogden found herself wholly mesmerized as, in the dim light from the little lamp beside William Jr.'s bed, William placed his hands up above the lampshade and the man created a menagerie of magic up on the ceiling for his young son. _William Murdoch could make astounding animal shadow puppets_ , she awed.

She stood there, unseen in the doorframe of William Jr.'s bedroom, and a part of herself told her that _she should not be surprised – he was brilliant, and creative, and insightful like none other, and William saw the world in so many different dimensions all at once_ , some of which she wondered if anyone else in the world would ever grasp. _Pendrick… Tesla… Edison…_ " came to mind. " _Perhaps_ ," she thought. _But her husband, this man, he was also uniquely masterful with his hands… and, it turns out, his heart._

William was in the midst of telling his son a bedtime story as the animals growled, and talked, and flew and ran and danced and cried and sang and much, much, more up on the ceiling, each shadow puppet morphing into the next one in the story. Julia saw the elephant first, William placing one hand atop of the other, the top one with the fingers creating the long curving downward slope of the elephant's face, and then under it the second hand making the trunk, drooping it low. His bottom thumb opened slightly away from the hand to make the elephant's mouth, and he held two fingers split apart – and behold, up on the ceiling, _a magnificent elephant with two perfect tusks!_ The story he told was of a herd of elephants, led by their wise and grandmotherly matriarch, _**"going on a journey far and long. So long in fact, that some of the youngest elephants would barely make it that far. Thus, that was the matriarch's dilemma, to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to travel so far to a vaguely-remembered watering hole during such a dry and parched drought."**_

" _ **But remember, hidden off in the bushes, at the edges…"**_ William alerted that the story would change.

And William Jr.'s eyes grew wide and he ducked down deeper into his blankets, staring off at a specific corner of the ceiling. The story had already told what it was that was hiding there.

 _And from the moment it appeared_ , Julia recognized it as being _recurring, significant – the tiger_.

William told that " _ **the tiger lurked and watched, always contemplative, always learning, with a hint of danger in the air, but also offering insight, insight that was profoundly balanced against the risk of encountering it. The tiger differs from the lion, not only in its stripes, but also in its solitude. Lions are social, their lives built around being a part of the network of their pride, much like the elephants, and the deer with their herds, and the wolves with their packs, and of course, the humans with their communities. Not so, the tiger, who lived most of its life alone, allowing it ample opportunity to surveil, scrutinize, discern, without being affected or swayed by attachments."**_

And back behind him, Julia wondered to herself _if the tiger William described might not have been himself, what William believed he would have been, had he not found her._

She studied his hands, the differences between what he had to do to with them make the elephant notable compared to those needed to create the tiger. William made the tiger by putting one hand on top of the other, the lower hand with its fingers and thumb cupping into a 'C' served as the muzzle and mouth, while the hand above was pressed flat down on top of the lower hand with his fingers crowning it, long and straight. It made the brow and eyes.

The tiger spoke with a whispery hiss, of what it saw, revealing a keen intelligence… _**"It waited for the littlest, weakest elephant to fall."**_

" _ **Off in another part of the world,"**_ William spared his toddler son from seeing the predetermined fate of the baby elephant, _**"The mother deer, a doe, hushed her fawn, alert, tingling, weighing the risks of taking her baby into the clearing to graze…"**_

A quick glance down at William's hands, and Julia saw the differences again. The deer's face was longer and straighter than the tiger's, William making it by placing one hand above the other one once more to be the brow and eyes and a thumb poked out for the forward-pointing ears, but now the bottom hand bent at a right angle at the second joint of fingers resulting in the long snout, leaving the index finger at the end separated from the other fingers for the small mouth.

William's narration went on, _**"The doe faced a life decision, a decision she faced every day since her little fawn had been born… Should she take the chance with such a little one by her side, it being essential to eat to be able to make milk for her baby son, or should she stay in the safety of the cover of the brush, out of sight of the big, pointy-toothed monsters that sought her baby as their dinner?**_ _William changed his voice to be the doe,_ _ **"Maybe there would be a better chance to graze in the clearing later? Perhaps she should wait…?"**_

" _ **Again, the tiger watched as the doe struggled with her decision, life on the edge, consequences weighty…"**_ the story unfolded.

Little William Jr. worried, gasping out a faintly whispered, "Oh no!"

William broke character, telling his son, "That Mommy deer knew there was danger, but if she did not, then the baby might starve. You're right, it was a very hard choice to make."

It was the way William Jr. looked back to the ceiling that convinced William to go on, and so the story continued, _**"Oh, but time had taught the tiger that there were other predators in the forest than just himself, and so he waited, patiently, as the deer silently led her fawn forward into the sunny field, and her shadow, her baby's shadow, appeared on the ground below them. But there were other shadows growing inward from the edges – the wolves."**_

"No Daddy," William Jr.'s little voice, so quiet Julia could barely hear it, the wishing of it breaking Julia's heart.

 _ **The wolf pack worked as a team, and coordinated, they were lethal."**_ William made the figure of the wolf's face up on the ceiling, _**"The weakest wolf, the runt on the litter, now older and scraggly, always the last to get food, if there was any left, lived his life at the bottom of the pack."**_ The hand position for the wolf seemed quite different from the other animals. William put his hands together as if he were going to clap. The two thumbs were up as the ears, the index fingers bent around each other, making the wolf's forehead and his eyes, under it, his other fingers stretched out straight, long and lean to be the snout. His pinky fingers tightly together and low at the bottom, and the scraggly wolf had a mouth.

" _ **The wolf pack targeted the fawn as the tiger had predicted, for it was vulnerable, inching closer, their shadows almost everywhere coming closer and closer on the ground. The closest wolf, the bravest wolf, the strongest wolf, was the one to receive the wrath of the mother deer as she protected her baby. "The doe reared up…"**_ William's adept hands rushed to change from wolf to deer, _ **"She jumped high, high in the air, slamming down full force on the body of the boldest wolf…**_ the shadow on the ceiling spilled and quivered, changing to become the wounded wolf, _ **"sending it yelping with its tail between its legs back to the safety of the brush. Although that one had retreated, all the others, snarling, and hunched, and slinking, grew closer again to the mother and her little fawn.**_

" _ **There was nothing left to do, the doe had decided,"**_ William's hands made the sharp bend to make the long face of the deer again, _**"She would lead the pack away from her baby. She turned, she bolted, luring the pack into chasing her, one quick backward buck landing hard into the nearest wolf knocking him back, presenting a hurdle for the others, and she ran, ran as fast as her ancestors' legs could carry her, only wanting to lead them away, away from her cherished son. She called back to him, guiding him to safety…**_ William's voice changed to match the terrified doe again, _ **"Run for the woods!" And her little son ran in the opposite direction, away from the danger, as fast as he could."**_

" _ **And all the while, the tiger watched,"**_ William's bedtime story shifted away from the horrors that would be once more. _**"The tiger, he would eat today too. His patience would pay off. Because while the wolf pack chased the mother deer, the tiger so easily caught up with the weakest, scraggly wolf at the rear. The scraggly wolf had paused before deciding, sometimes that in itself is enough of a mistake to cost you your life. The lowly wolf had thought to betray the pack, to stay behind and get the fawn for itself rather than uphold its part of the team. The tiger benefitted from his indecision."**_

The pause was long, and the ceiling paled white, not a shadow in the sky.

William's voice low, spoke again, with a sadness in it that ached, _**"And then later, the tiny fawn searched everywhere for his mother, his panic growing as more and more time and more and more distance passed without finding her."**_ William's hands, unnoticeably puppeteering, turned the fawn's head left and then right on the ceiling. _**"Running forward a few steps, calling out for her, at first only quietly, afraid to alert the beasts in the bushes of his presence,**_ William whispered in the voice of the frightened fawn _ **, "Mommy… Mommy," but soon alarm set in until he was screaming her name as loud as he could, "Mommy! Mommy! Where are you?! I'm frightened!" until his throat burned and scratched with the pain of yelling so loudly, and for so long, and still he cried out more…"**_ William's voice lower and scratchy and dry, _ **"Mommy. Mother please, please hear me… Please, Mommy…" the little fawn called, and he begged, and his knees buckled, weak, exhausted, holding back tears for, if he let himself cry he knew he would give up, he would lose hope, he would despair.**_

" _ **And off in his corner of the brush, even the tiger felt a tear wet his eye and a lump swell in his throat, for the love of his own mother was the only love he had ever known,"**_ _William shared, his story including compassion and empathy, even for the tiger._

And Julia too, began to cry, _for Julia was one of those souls in the world who knew_ _how much it hurt to lose your mother…_

" _ **Finally, when the little fawn was so tired he could not take one more step, then, he found her…"**_

"His Mommy!?" William Jr. hoped.

William went on, not answering _ **, "The baby fawn had found his beautiful doe mother. She was lying on the ground, and she was so quiet and so still. "She's sleeping," the little fawn thought. And he tried, and he tried, but he could not wake her."**_

" _ **And then, so suddenly, floating upward, like colorful snowflakes, but coming up from the ground instead of down from the sky, seemingly spilling out everywhere in the air…"**_ And then William crossed his hands at the wrists and spread both hands out flat to be the wings, his thumbs crossed as well, making the head and the pointy edges of his thumbs for the two antennae…

Enthralled, Julia secretly watched on from afar at the edge of the show's curtain. But then…

Her breath caught, for when she looked up to the ceiling the image was unmistakable. And William said what she already knew…

" _ **The sky was full of butterflies."**_

William's butterfly, softly, perfectly, fluttered its wings, and he darted it here and there so unpredictably – _the very thing_ , Julia remembered, _the very thing that he had said made him 'uneasy' about them all those years before._ The butterfly's antennae wiggled, the rest of its body suddenly still, it looked towards the tiger's corner of the brush…

" _ **And… The butterfly listened for the tiger..."**_ his story explained…

And then the sting of salt burned in Julia's eyes, for she saw that William was taking off his wedding ring, focused and purposefully he put the golden circle between his thumbs, _he would use it for something_ , and a part of her already grasped what it was while yet another part of her was still yet to be surprised, and stuck between the two, it left her breathless off in the background.

Up on the ceiling, up in the celestial realm of William's tale, _**the butterfly had become a stunning, haloed, angel.**_

And Julia knew, with such pain wrenching in her heart, _that to him, to William, it was the death of his mother unfolding up on that ceiling, and it hurt so much to love him so._

William's voice, too, sounded choked-up as he told, _**"And then the angel said to the doe's little baby boy, "Know, my Little One, that you never walk the Earth completely alone, that I will always be here with you… To me, you are the most precious boy in all the world…"**_

And Julia's mind whispered it to herself – _"His grandmother – She's William Jr.'s Grandmother Mary."_

Up on the ceiling, William turned the guardian angel, _ **"The angel remembered the edges of the brush and what was concealed there. She saw the boy was scared, and she encouraged, "Do not dread encountering the tiger, Little One, for the tiger has learned much from intently observing the creatures in the world, and thus it is that all of the animals need the tiger, because it is only when one faces the tiger that what is truly most important, what it is one is living his life for, what it IS that makes his life meaningful, can be revealed to him. Treasure what you learn each time you meet the tiger," she told her Little One down below. "Live an inspired life, a life that is full, full of growing and stretching and helping and loving and caring, and know you are never alone, never, for you will always have me, up here in Heaven, looking down over you." And then, before her shadow dimmed away like a shadow does when it gets lost behind a cloud, she offered her final guiding message, "Don't forget to notice the changing shadows, the lengths, the angles on the ground. They can tell you what is coming, and they can guide you to find the source of the light in your life." And with that, the guardian angel was gone from the little boy's sight, but he knew, he would always know, she was watching over him."**_

And there, William ended his story, bringing his hands down from above the lampshade, slipping his wedding ring back on his finger. He sat down next to William Jr. on the bed and tucked his blankets in around him. "And so, my Little Man, it is time for you to say, "Good night," he said, and he leaned over and gave his son a kiss.

"Goodnight Daddy," the sweet little voice the last thing Julia heard as she ducked away, stepping out of sight. Holding back her emotions, holding at bay her tears, she rushed away a few steps down the hall before, quietly, she found the hallway wall with her back and melted backwards into it, overcome. Then, hand over mouth to quiet it, she yielded to her crying. Julia let the swell of emotions roll through her, while in the back of her mind she knew she must decide, decide whether to tell William or not that she had seen, that she had heard him tell his tale…

William stepped out into the hallway, catching sight of Julia standing there. Their eyes met. " _She's crying,"_ he told himself, " _She saw_." He pulled William Jr.'s bedroom door to leave it opened just a crack and he approached her.

The light in the hallway was dim, but still she saw it so clearly, William wrinkled the corner of his mouth, and it was simple, between them there were no secrets.

Julia's face wrinkled into her crying and she whispered, as she melted into his arms, and her lips moved close to his ear, "That was beautiful, so beautiful." And she felt his arms, strong, reliable, warm around her, absorbing the shock of her soft and unexpected tears.

William found himself speechless, and so he offered comfort, and connection, with a kiss at her ear. Tenderly he shushed her, "Shh… Shh."

Julia's whispers squeaked as they breathlessly rushed to tell, "You were the little fawn. You told your son your story, William…" she sniffled, "The doe died trying to protect him, like your mother protected you that day, when you were just a boy. And the butterflies, our wedding ring and your angel…"

"Shh," he finally quieted her, and they stayed together, embracing there in their hallway upstairs just outside their sleeping little toddler son's bedroom, for a while. Confused by her powerful reaction, he reminded himself that _she was pregnant again_ , making sense of it enough to do nothing but love her for the strength of her feelings, easing his urge to take away her pain, to remove what was fretting her so.

)

Both in their bedclothes, William and Julia talked through the day, the case, and intermittently they made plans for tomorrow – their favorite day of the week – Saturday. Julia sat at her vanity brushing out her hair, looking to her husband, already under the covers in bed, sharing with his reflection in the mirror. William had frowned with admitting he had come to a deadlock in the case. His questioning of the manager at Davies Slaughterhouse had only served to solidify his suspicions that no one at the slaughterhouse was involved with the murder or the dumping of the body on their property. He sighed and rubbed stressfully at his brow with admitting that he thought it best to wait for the results from the samples she had sent to the University to be analyzed.

He saw her smile in the mirror. "Well, I must admit that I find myself glad of it, William, that we will have time to ourselves this weekend." There was a hint of something being held back and it piqued his interest.

"Julia?" he asked. _Oh, there was a definitely a look… and it stirred him, that lovely butterflies feeling in the stomach, a mix of anticipation and worry…_

Trying to be nonchalant, Julia returned her eyes to her own reflection and resumed brushing her fiery hair. "I bought a sled today," she told.

"Oh," he replied. In his head he was thinking, " _That's nice. It will be fun. William Jr.'s a good age to try his first…"_ But then the slight curl at the corners of her mouth in the glass and he felt the little somersault. _It was that devilish, Mona-Lisa smile_ , and he alerted himself to get ready…

Sexy, her quick glance, touching his gorgeous brown eyes and then pulling away…

"I think I'll wear trousers all day tomorrow. They're perfect for sledding, and then we can have lunch at that restaurant close to the Park… after," she said.

In the mirror, he raised an eyebrow at her.

The Inspector's voice barked his lecture at him inside his head, " _I know you've married a firebrand and she's the persuasive type, but you're her husband. What you say goes. Wear the trousers for once, man!"_ he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at himself, unknowingly, as he thought, " _Ironic… 'trousers…"_

"Husband…" Julia's scolding voice interrupted him. She pushed away from the vanity and turned to face him in the bed. "If God meant for women's legs to be stuck together, he'd have made us live in water where we could move like dolphins, like some sort of…" her hands flipped about, frustrated, "Well, like a mermaid, I guess. Even worse, to live on land like a dolphin, unable to lie flat out to minimize friction and swim forward, but instead having to stand straight upright and do little more than hop from place to place," she sarcastically complained. "That is much what it is like," she insisted, "to do anything more than stroll along in a dress," she added.

For his part in the matter, William had let his imagination move forward and he had imagined his beautiful wife's curves in trousers. _He liked it_. "Come here," he said, growing lustful.

 _Whew, his expression, his tone, had quite on effect on her insides._

Being Julia Ogden though, she sought a way to keep the upper hand on their flirtations. She grabbed a hold of the skirts of her nightdress and pulled them snug around her thighs…

A look William did not mind at all, _her waist small, her hips wide…_

And then she hopped, _her rendition of being a dolphin on land_ , over to the bed, losing her balance and falling happily into him.

"You make a beautiful hopping dolphin," he said, with barely a chuckle, for his red-blooded male mind was quite distracted by the 'beautiful' part…

"Soon to be a whale," she commented, settling in on top of him.

 _And William reminded himself about her_ _concerns with her losing her sexy shape and becoming overly large with being pregnant. He had noticed that such worries had seemed to replace her more common one about her appearance, that of fretting over the state of her hair._

"A beautiful whale then," he attuned, with his voice so lustful and deep and grumbly and close to her ear that it seemed to resonate inside of her in such a way that it erupted her insides into scrumptious hot melty magma, and any hope of thinking, talking, teasing, swirled away with the delight of it.

William reached up to her from below and kissed her, and as his kisses could sometimes be, this was a phenomenal kiss. The blood rushed away from her brain so quickly she was not even sure how he ended up on top of her, she was only heart-thumpingly grateful that he was. It grew wildly passionate, William's hands taking liberties seemingly everywhere all over her succulent mushy jiggly body all at once _._ Julia's womb longed and yearned and hankered for him so that it twisted and wrung and burned with the sudden desire. The tiniest moan pined in her throat, seeming to set William on fire. His kissing, his taking, grew feverish, and each drop of Julia's body rose up to him like the tide waters under the forces of the turning of the Earth as it faces towards the pull of the Moon lift it up to drench over the land.

 _It ached_ , when he regained control of himself and broke off the kiss.

From up above her in the golden lamplight…

" _He is gorgeous_ ," she noticed…

He said, out of breath, _his heart pounding at his own chest with the sudden and demanding arousal_ , such that it brought him to need to swallow to pull off sounding restrained and to be able to get back to their earlier conversation as if nothing had happened between them, "I see your point…" he almost chuckled with the need to clear his throat, "about the restriction of movement of skirts vs. trousers," he admitted with a wrinkle at the corner of his mouth. Then he took one of her rebel curls in his fingers, averting his eyes to it, and he added, "And it is good to see your accompanying me to Church on Sundays has opened your mind to God's ways…" His eyes caught hers, mischief and seriousness dancing together in the twinkle she saw there. He went on, "It is true, God made _**both**_ men and women in his image, and He made them _**both**_ with two separate legs."

Underneath him, Julia struggled with the inner conflicts tugging her this way and that. _All she wanted in the world was for this luscious man to make love to her – now, please now..._ But also, _she was becoming aware that_ _his need for her to more wholeheartedly accept religion_ … the apprehension inferred in the thought forced a sigh, " _HIS religion_. _It felt burdensome_." And a part of her worried that her having _this feeling signaled that troubles were brewing for them ahead._

And then, like the flip of a switch, she chose the more primal path.

Sultry, she seduced at him, "May I suggest, my strikingly handsome husband, that we take advantage of the way God made us…" Julia reached down underneath him to shift and then scrunched and lifted her nightgown, her eyes staying lustfully tight to his so that she could see them darken with the wanting, and then she tugged at the string of his pajama bottoms…

 _Delicious,_ as she pushed and shoved at the cloth, hungry to free him.

Her breath humid as she continued, adjusting herself underneath him, she whispered, "For you, and only you, William, I spread my…"

And his groin throbbed with such junglish need that he did not hear the rest of whatever it was that she said. _He was gone, completely, uncontrollably, gone._

And Julia tried to finish her thought as William's kiss, William's shadow, mounted nearer, "We have a responsibility as a married man and woman to fornic..."

 _Oh, they would fornicate alright, like a hurricane and a tornado and a volcanic eruption and an earthquake and a tsunami all wrapped into one, and any other forces of nature, or acts of God for that matter, as well, for their love was immensely strong, and sometimes such a strong love can shake the world._

) (

After breakfast, their Saturday starting out cozy and lazy, William and Julia dressed for their first sledding adventure with their little son. As her husband watched on, Julia bubbled with joy as she thought about _how lucky she was to have him, how fortunate she was that he could be thrilled by her rather bold nature, that a man such as William Henry Murdoch, a traditional man, a modest man, could let go of his concerns with upholding society's expectations. It seemed even more than let go, actually. William seemed to authentically enjoy her rebelliousness_ , she marveled. Interrupting the train of thought, a memory from the night before appeared in her mind, of his hand shadow puppets and his telling of that beautifully sad story on William Jr.'s ceiling. _His life had made him who he was, and she was grateful for every bit of it._

It was probably that connection – between William's bedtime story centering around his mother's death, and Julia's out-of-the-blue question.

"William?" she said, stepping closer to him, "I've been thinking about the baby's name…"

"Mm," all he said, closing the gap between them and taking advantage of the opportunity to get his hands on her, taking a hold of her hips…

 _William was liking the trousers._

Julia wrapped her hands up around his neck and a more devilish part of her imagined William doing what she figured he was wishing for, _giving in to his urges and reaching around to squish and mold and squeeze at her supple, tight, trouser-covered backside_. The thoughts tweaked her womb, but she made an effort to move past the temptations.

She inhaled to begin to speak, "I know we were planning on the names Susana and Lionel, for your sister and my father, but…"

And William's brain chased after her meaning, a bit soupy from being distracted by his temporary lust…

Julia had gone on to ask, "Well, what do you think of… Mary?" Her blue, blue eyes searched his face.

He was taken, and typical of William when he was overcome by emotion, he seemed wholly unable to speak.

Julia would. "Mary is a lovely name, William. And I know your mother has been on your mind lately, hmm?" she asked, bringing her fingers to his cheeks.

He cleared his throat and replied, his voice still scratchy with having been touched, "I would like that."

"Good," she answered and leaned in to give him a quick kiss.

Thinking that the naming of their children should be more equal, he suggested, "It's just…" with a start, and then finding he needed to push himself to finish, he said, "Well, maybe because we named our son after me… uh, well, maybe we should name our daughter after you…"

"Julia Jr.!?" she laughed.

William hurried to explain, "I know it's not traditional, but we have a modern marriage… And if it's a boy – we could name him Julian, after you…?" so expectant, he waited.

 _Sometimes this man just astounded her_ , and Julia found that she herself felt caught for a moment, stuck, unable to think, let alone speak.

Nervously, a little chuckle sounded, and she said, "It seems we have BOTH been thinking about names."

Then she took a moment to reflect, _turning her thoughts to what it was that SHE truly wanted_. The answers came quickly, and her stance grew more solid. Her look became direct, decided, and she said, "I love the name Mary…"

William nodded. _Inside his heart singing_. He was happy for it.

"And, I must say, if we have a boy, I don't want him to be named after me, or after my father. I want him to have his own name." Her expression opened as she checked William's eyes, wondering if she had upset him.

It was a subtle, his nod. _He was with her._

"Daniel," she told her wish, "I've always loved the name Daniel."

William's hands tucked into her hair, "Well then, Daniel it shall be," he smiled, a big reassuring, warm, lovely smile.

 _And then a part of him nearly bent in half secretly laughing to himself_ , because his pregnant wife, looking so amazingly sexy in her new trousers, reached up to her head and declared, "William! My hair!"

And with that, the Murdoch's, the missus-half of the pair in wildly rebellious trousers, but with perfect hair, and a little 'Murdoch Bump,' took their young son out sledding in the Park and then out to lunch. It was a wonderful, wonderful day.

)

With the baby tucked into bed hours ago, William and Julia finally made it upstairs to undress and get ready for bed themselves. Julia removed her trousers. As William unbuttoned his shirt, he found himself looking for the bulge of the baby growing inside of her. A part of him interrupted with the absurd thought _that "she might want to wear the trousers to Church tomorrow!"_ Shoving at the troubling thought, _"she wouldn't…"_ William suggested, "Perhaps, after Church tomorrow, we can come home and change, and then go sledding again. The snow will soon be gone."

Her expression worried him, his mind reconsidering the likelihood of the ' _trousers to Church'_ possibility. Whatever it was, it charged the air around them with a silent, static, crackling…

Julia blew out some the pressure she was feeling, and seeing it, William's face began to lock in place, mixing together his self-protective brand of 'bracing and rigid' with 'deer-in-the-trainlights' stunned.

"William," she started slow and calm, but then decided it best to just say it, so she blurted it out, "I have been so tired with the baby coming now… and I, uh…" Julia grew taller with the decision, "I would prefer to stay at home. You could go… with William Jr. …?"

 _Just at the end, her tone had risen into a question, and the Earth trembled a bit with waiting for William Murdoch to react._

"Me…?" he asked already shaking his head no, "Without you?!" his arms opened wide exaggerating the question.

"Yes," she answered… _And he saw it, that defiant chin of hers jutting out._

It loomed ahead, unavoidable. _They were going to have fight._

 _It was odd in a way, because once the fact of it was accepted, there was a sort of relief, each one choosing their weapons, becoming wholly engaged in the battle, forgetting about the regret._

It was the way William leaned into her as he said it as much as the words themselves, that told that he would not be bending on this one. _He had righteousness on his side_ , and he would dig in and stand up for it. "People will think you only went to Mass all this time so that we could go to a Catholic orphanage for an adoption," he accused.

 _Wow, so stubborn_ …

Her chin held high, eyes on fire, hands firmly to her hips, she leaned just as much back into him…

The word ' _firebrand_ ' swirled through his brain and then evaporated away.

"I never claimed otherwise, William – and YOU know it!" she steamed. "I'm exhausted from carrying around…" she stepped back and shoved her belly forward, her eyes… his eyes, down to see the, _quite small yet_ , baby bump, "And from feeding, and growing, YOUR child, your child William Henry Murdoch, every second of the day inside of me, and now I'm going to get huge, and, and… All YOU had to do was enjoy the pure ecstasy of your…" Julia's fingers held up to show the small gap of air between her index finger and her thumb, "your tiny, tiny, little miniscule part in it, and now all the women still want you, and, and…"

William's mind had raced backward to the _conversation that the two of them had had over hot chocolate when he had told her about his conversation with Father Clements, about the negative responses the priest had been getting in advocating for their adopting a child from a Catholic orphanage_ … But he was unable to search further, now distracted by feeling insulted and hurt by her sarcastic complaints about his role in making their baby… babies… And swirled around in the mix of mush in his brain there were splatters of memories of _the waitress – and then the FIRST waitress… and all those flirtatious young ladies in her University class…_

She had decided in that second – _He was sleeping on the couch_. Her eyes lifted up to the top of their closet. _The extra bedding was up on the shelf…_

William followed her glance. And, although he instantly accepted it – a part of him was _glad_ for it even, it infuriated him that _SHE got to be the one to decide his fate!_ William's face pinched tight with determination. "Julia…" his tone of calmness was betrayed by the subtle quivering of his voice.

So quickly the bedding was shoved into his arms. "I suppose you had not noticed, William…" her tone rang superior and judgmental, "I have never been one to be swayed by what 'PEOPLE' think. Though I'm not surprised that such a _fine, upstanding man_ as yourself is." She hurried over to the bedroom door and opened it for him. "Out!" she instructed.

And William felt as if he had fallen off the precipice, as if he was dangling, tossed about like a piece of paper on the breeze, any sense of control gone completely out the window. He stared back at her, eyes wide, stunned. Deer-in-the-trainlights had won out in the end.

"Out William," she said calmer but stronger, ducking her chin downward and looking up at him.

He swore he saw steam flowing out of her nostrils as she exhaled and stood there waiting for him to go. His feet moved him through the door. Out in the hallway, he turned back to face her, exiled, and the anger seemed to resurface. "Fine," he said. "And I will not be going to your… tuxedo function, toff… party… thing…"

Immediately she accused, "You're just doing that to spite me!" chin back up, venom resurging in her eyes.

" _Perhaps,"_ he considered her point in his head, and then blew out the steam of the pressure through his pursed lips. "Sorry," he gave with his customary wrinkled corner of the mouth look, only to receive the slammed bedroom door in his face… Three seconds later, the door opening, him still standing there immobile, flabbergasted by how quickly things had erupted into utter chaos, and her arm stuck out through the opened crack to toss his pajamas at him. Ironically, in order to give the door a second, proper, slam, she had had to open it wider, and for a brief moment William thought she was reconsidering. He leaned in towards her only to receive the second slammed door in his face.

William looked to the baby's room, waiting for the crying... _Tying to slow his heart_ , he exhaled with relief for the silence, only to be alerted by the door in front of him opening again… and despite all evidence to the contrary, again he felt his heart open and hope. _His shaving kit, that was what it was._ Julia shoved it onto the top of his pile. _His brain told him to speak…_

Slam. Then slam. Then slam. And then, as if another instrument in the orchestra had been written into the symphony, William Jr.'s crying trumpeted in from down the hallway. From the other side of their bedroom door, _William's nerves jumping inside of his outwardly stoic body with anticipating that the slamming would resume_ , Julia yelled, "You and your _**BIG**_ Catholic family. You go!"

With her eyes fixed on the flat wooden surface of the door, she sat down on their bed. "Damn it!" she said, her use of the unacceptable curse only walloping her gut and her head with another flare of emotion. Julia swallowed down the swelling tears, holding them at bay. _Perhaps she was over-reacting again, because she was pregnant… making her impatient… prickly?_ she considered, her hand to her belly. _She had wanted him to understand, to see that she was feeling strained, and to agree that the demands on her were high, and to agree that she needed the opportunity to relax, to have at least half-a-day NOT to have to interact with 'people,' NOT to have to work at always saying the right thing, NOT to have to dress the right way, NOT to have to be something she was not._ She felt her anger vise-gripping her jaw, fiercely tight and rigid once more, as the hurt and the helpless rage sunk in. In the quiet, she could hear her deeper thoughts. _The feeling was sickening_ , that quiet, that ear-buzzing stillness. And it wobbled and rippled on the surface, like it was riding the waves of her settling mind, attempting to form, to solidify, and the pain from the thought was unbearable, " _He's ashamed of me…"_ and she pushed it away before she could wholly identify it, confirm it, accept it as true.

Julia spoke to her baby in her womb, concerned that that tiny, innocent, sweet, little baby was feeling the overwhelming torrents of her state. Her voice so tender it could soothe a troubled soul, she said, "You have a Catholic father, Little One…" then sighed, "I guess you are Catholic too. Your Daddy takes his Faith very seriously, it's a part of who he is." Those tears threatened in the backs of her eyes again as the train of thought shifted. _"I wonder why he ever wanted to marry me at all?"_ she thought, and as human nature does, a question tossed out is a question tried to answer, and the answer to this one came immediately – "Because _YOU_ were _THE ONE_ for him." She fought it, _just some romantic poppycock_. _He would have been happier with his little schoolteacher, his beloved Liza, or even Enid Jones. He would have had himself his big Church-going Catholic family._ _**But…**_ she knew, knew he would _not_ have been happier with them. The truth hovered unspecific in her awareness but sprung from being grounded in the knowing that _we are all happiest when we are growing, and Julia wholeheartedly knew that SHE made William grow… and perfectly matched with that, he did the same for her, although…_ and inside she chuckled with the delightful flavor of it, _his 'making her' was so much more subtle than hers of him._ _Even now, hurt and angry as she was, she could not deny that._

She rubbed her belly a minute longer. This little conundrum they found themselves in, _it was a bit thorny._ There was definitely going to be some growing necessary to get out of this one, and likely, it was going to be the kind of growing that alters something deep, something that hurts down to the bone and then, hopefully, heals stronger.

)

Downstairs, William sat in the moonlight on the end of the couch, the windows of the living room south-facing, through them the shadows from the paler white-glow loomed on the floor. _Plenty of time now_ , he chased after remembering their conversation over the hot chocolate that night. He had told her what Father Clements had said, that ' _people_ ' in the Catholic orphanages thought poorly of their perspective parenting, the whole ordeal, he remembered regretfully all over again, a testament to their – but more largely _HER_ – lacking morals. " _SHE wanted to keep working, so THEY used contraceptives and chose to adopt rather than have a child of their own…."_ the misperceptions replayed in his mind.

He was holding his breath, lips tight, everything about his body language resisted. _It had been unsaid – that was the truth of it._ But, he had to admit it was more than likely implied, that Julia chose to attend Sunday Mass, chose to become active in their sharing of _his_ Faith, because it would improve ' _people's_ ' image of her – of them, as potential parents. An undefinable sense of loss permeated downward, heavy.

Guilt set in and his face wrinkled with acknowledging it. He had been wrong, _wrong to think there was something more to it than that._ And the profound ache that that acknowledgement caused inside of him burned so that he felt dizzy. And William Murdoch began to cry.

) (

 _ **The misty early morning light told that it was a Sunday morning and they had time before rising to dress in their Sunday best and hail a cab to William's Catholic church across town for the later Mass. Julia stood at the foot of the bed and she spied William gazing down at her chest, and she looked down to see what it was that had so captured his attention. Her breath caught with the sight of herself in her nightgown, the first two buttons at the top unbuttoned, jiggly, delicious cleavage bulging out.**_ **Oh my, it did look good!** _ **She looked back at him, a little embarrassed, surprised, and so, so quickly she saw the sparkle of lust in his darkly-pooled eyes, and like wildfire her arousal spread.**_

 _ **WHAM, they were making passionate, luscious, mountainous, pounding love on the bed. Her womb torqued with tormented desire… "**_ **William!** _ **" breathless, she pleaded, "**_ **Please! Please don't stop!"** _ **she sensed the monumental wave was so close.**_ **"Oh! Oh!"** _ **her cries erupted into his ear.**_ **And then, how the world imploded with the forceful succulence of it** _ **, William's moan in her ear, so sweet the soupy warm ripples and the wishing they would never, never end.**_

 _ **Limp and spent and out of breath and heart thundering, she felt her body weak and heavy underneath him. Then the blaring alarm lurched in her head – THEY WOULD BE LATE!**_

 _ **There was a mad rush to dress themselves, the baby, to put on their shoes and their coats. Running up the church path, the service had begun, and the warmth of the crowded congregation hit their faces as they stepped in the back doors and halted in an effort to be quiet, to remain unnoticed. Holding to the rituals, William led them to the Holy Water… "Shh," she shushed William Jr. while trying to slow the wild racing of her heart. They searched for three seats together in the pews… Still standing at the back, she saw William look down at her chest, and she looked to see what it was he was staring at… A heart-stabbing panic struck her – SHE WAS STILL IN HER NIGHTGOWN. Julia's eyes jumped to William's face as she rushed to button the top buttons. And she had to fight with all her might not to give in to the devastating hurt of seeing his shame.**_ **"I'm sorry William!"** _ **her voice squeaked through her whispers and William dashed to move close in front of her, covering her with his body so no one could see. A woman gasped, and everyone in the Church turned! And the din of judgmental conversations thundered in her head. "Out! She had to get out!" and she pounded against William's grasp to free herself, to run, to get away, to get all those eyes off of her, her arms, her fists, striking, thrashing…**_

The motion of the twitches woke her. Up – she sat up. _Just a dream_. Astounding the pounding of her heart in her chest. _Just a dream._ And somehow the creepy feeling of being in her nightgown flooded through her and she was up out of the bed and dressing with barely another thought.

)

When William had come upstairs to dress he had heard William Jr. up and playing in his room. Stepping into their bedroom, he found that Julia was dressed for church, her hair up, wearing a beautiful dress. He had asked her about it, thinking she would NOT be joining him. _He had done so_ , he thought, _without revealing the pounding hope he felt that she had changed her mind, that she had realized that it was a part of who they were…_

Julia told her husband that the issue remained unresolved between them, and as such she felt it was best that she continued attending Sunday Mass until they had worked it through. It brought some relief, unsaid, between them, but expressed when William had blown out a big exhale through pursed lips, as he tended to do when the pent-up pressure inside of him had found release. To himself, he had thought, to his own later shame… " _At least people won't know…"_ and then he had wrinkled a corner of his mouth at himself, thinking, _"at least not yet,_ " and that thought fired in his brain at the same time as the memory of the slamming door in his face and Julia's voice sarcastically stinging him with the accusation that he cared more about what **"** _ **People'**_ _thought than he cared about her_ …" and a part of him had to admit that he _DID_ care about what _**they**_ thought. And the gurgling, swirling nausea of being unsettled between fear and dread and shame and sorrow sickened him, and he had taken a deep breath, and he had made himself soldier on.

The mood between them was businesslike, _odd-feeling, to be so when they were_ _not_ _at work_. William Jr. noticed, was troubled by it, at one point during the cab ride home from church wondering, "Daddy Mommy kiss?" Julia had scooped him up into her lap and said, as she pulled his black curls away from his ear and gave him a soft kiss, "Not now, Little One."

Once at home, upstairs changing, William suggested that they go back to park with the sled, reasoning that the snow would melt away soon.

"No, you take him," she had said.

The flare of the burn swept through him, William pushing aside the wishing once more. "Julia," he returned, "The sled was your idea, you bought it. If don't want to be with me, then YOU should take him."

She frowned, then sighed. "Let's both take him," she said, her tone impatient, refilling with the surge of her anger. And she was too annoyed, too bothered, to look inward and try to figure out why she felt so irritated – _she just did, "damn it…!"_ her brain bellowed the profanity inside her head with her teeth gritted so tightly the sweetness of the pain wrenched and echoed deep into her jaw. Unable to wholly control herself, she slammed drawers and flung clothing about as she put on her more casual skirt…

Such blinding steam in her head when he had the nerve to ask her, "I thought you were going to wear trousers?"

 _ **Slam**_!

She quipped, "What…!? And have people talking about your wife's morals? We can't have that, William, now can we."

 _Deer-in-the-trainlights… Deer-in-the-trainlights._

That night, William Murdoch slept, again, on the couch.

) (

Monday morning came. Eloise came in to find the detective shaving in the downstairs bathroom. The older housekeeper felt her heart drop, for it always hurt her a bit when the detective and the doctor were in the midst of having an argument. She reminded herself that _a 'good' marriage is meant to have rifts and ripples and bumps, and theirs was most definitely a 'good' marriage, it was one she envied, actually._

The family sat around the kitchen table, William Jr. on the riser-seat next to his mother, seeming to have mastered, already, eating at the table somewhat properly. The father of the family read the newspaper. The mood was, as expected, stiff.

In the center of the table, the Tiger Rose was drooping, a fallen petal under it in its shadow. Eloise took it away.

Julia congratulated herself for keeping her interactions warm and cheery with their little son. She noticed, _almost peripherally_ , feeling an apprehension to wholly _looking_ , that William was writing… doodling something, in the margins of the paper. _"I wonder if it's his thoughts on the case,"_ her mind suggested. It surprised her that the tension, the disquiet, could actually heighten, but it did inside of her with remembering that _they were dealing with the SECOND body to be dumped on their property, and it being a so grossly chopped-up one at that, and the press being rabid after William for not solving it all over again…_

She lifted her cup of coffee to her lips, peeked his way. Before taking her sip, she asked, nonchalantly, "Something about the case?"

"No," all he said.

William folded up the paper and put it aside. "We should get going…" he said, and _for the first time in so long,_ he looked at her. "It's too messy to bike, with the melted snow," he pinched his lips tight, "Shall we share a cab?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," she answered.

)

Sitting alone in the cab, on her way to her class at the University, Julia found the first long, quiet period of time to think that she had had all day. She had not seen William once, there being no reason to contact him for the case. _Truthfully, she dreaded terribly going home tonight, and having to deal with it._ Her anger reared up again, this time she examined it more thoroughly. _She was disappointed with him. She had expected him to understand, to choose her…_ A memory came. It was from that awful conversation – " _more of a 'talking to' really_ ," she corrected herself, from the Inspector, back when she had been running for election. Indignation and raging fury fired up inside of her all over again as she reheard their conversation from that day in her head, the Inspector calling her into his office and insisting, _"Now that you're married, Doctor, the world sees you differently. You're his property, and whether you like it or not, your actions are his actions."_ She remembered she had resisted the Inspector's view, _reminding her now of her younger self's gumption with which she had fought wearing a corset after her mother had died_ , not willing to see herself, not willing to see herself and William, as the Inspector had been trying to force her to. She had argued with him that she and William did not see their marriage that way, she contended that the Inspector himself knew that. _But it had been in vain, because his message had gotten through to her in the end, and she had dropped out of the election, disappointing Emily, disappointing the other women – infuriating and alienating Lillian Moss… disappointing herself._

" _There was hurt there, and plenty of anger_ ," she thought, _for she_ _ **had**_ _given up her dreams and aspirations for_ _ **him**_ _–_ " _well at least some of them_ " … and then it came, the thought, with a haunting tone, _"Perhaps he had done the same for her… long ago."_ And her hand rose to guard her womb and the Little One growing inside of it, and she remembered _those pools of tears in his beautiful eyes when she had told him she was sterile…_ And she remembered too, going to his Church to meet with Father Clements, and _trying, so hard, to balance who she_ _ **was**_ _with being_ _ **what it was necessary**_ _for her to be to wholly embrace ALL of William_ , facing head on then, _not the first time,_ the challenge of fitting with his Faith. She cynically giggled to herself, _"not the last time either, it seems."_

Then, out of left field, the thought came, as a newspaper headline – " _Toronto's Favorite Couple._ " She shook her head at herself with the awe of it. _There was so very much to the making of 'them,' it was all so complicated and it hurt her head, and her soul ached with missing him, with missing being 'them…'_ Bordering, faltering, dropping into intolerable, Julia pushed the thoughts away. _Back to work. Back to work_. " _Today, they have an exam,"_ she thought, grateful for not having to lecture, to teach, tonight. She sighed and then frowned, for she predicted…

 _And it would turn out that she had predicted correctly…_

…That all the pretty young female students would want to talk about would be William and his future lecture.

)

Julia got home later than usual, having told herself it would be best if she stayed in her office to grade the students' exams. The greeting between William and Julia had been minimal, as he came to her in the foyer while she took off her coat. She informed him that she intended to enjoy Eloise's plate of dinner, set aside and waiting for her in the kitchen, and she thought to herself _that she would also have a glass of wine,_ and she notified him that she would be busy working on grading exams. _Basically, she wanted him to leave her alone_.

He did so without a word, going back to read by the fire in his recliner.

)

The tension in the house was high as the time ticked passed when they would normally go to sleep, William not wanting to _**assume**_ he was sleeping, _**either**_ in the bed, _**or**_ , on the couch, so he waited, reading in the living room. Julia answered him eventually, signaling that he would be sleeping on the couch by bringing out the bedding that Eloise had put away, and putting the pile, complete with his pajamas and shaving kit, on the couch.

He put his journal down and stood. His inhalation alerted her that he would speak, and it sent a chill of anxiety through her.

He said it as he rubbed his brow, "I think we should talk."

She huffed, "William! There's nothing to talk about. I am going to continue to go with you to Church to keep our _**'precious reputation…**_ ' _so snidely, she had said those words_ , "…from being sullied. And all the while you and I both know you disapprove of my motives… of me, even though you were always aware of who I am, and my reasons for doing…" her eyes darted away, weakening, "For doing what it is you've always wanted, from the start. And I can't bear knowing I disappoint you, and so…" She shrugged, and he saw the tears hinting in her eyes, "And so, since you can't love me the way I am…"

 _That hurt!_ William immediately began shaking his head, whispering " _No, no, no_ " in his head…

Julia backed away as he moved closer. She looked away, began to turn, her voice low, she tried to finish, "And so, this is what we'll have to do…"

He took her shoulders in his grasp, his hold soft with his fingers, but so pleading with his eyes. His voice had become dry with the fear. "Julia _ **, nothing**_ you could ever do would make me not love you," he said. "And," he added, "I don't disapprove of you either…" _But he found it had halted there, before he would say that he was not disappointed, and he tried to decide if it was because he was disapp…"_

She cupped his cheek, and her eyes yielded to the salty call of crying, joining with his. "I know, William," she nodded. "I know you love me, but we are _NOT_ alright right now." She dropped her hand away from his face and stepped free.

She sighed, so heavy. _They had arrived at a stalemate. They would have to wait until there was a shift._ She gave him the corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle…

It made him, too, release a burdened sigh. He turned away from her and began to prepare the couch for the night.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night," he replied.

As she stepped out of their living room, leaving him there behind her, Julia felt the stress would surely give her another restless night. The yearning for a whiskey warmed in response to the thought. Before she would go upstairs for the night, she walked through the kitchen to the dining room to pour herself a drink… That's when she spied it there – _**the newspaper, the newspaper William had been reading this morning,**_ over on the window-seat behind the kitchen table. She took it with her upstairs, planning to read it as a distraction, wondering what it had said about the case.

)

Snug in her nightgown, _as snug as she could be without William in bed with her_ , she placed the paper and glass of whiskey down on her night-table and slipped under the covers. She added his pillow to hers behind her and took a deep breath. _The whiskey would feel good,_ she thought, and she opened the paper, seeking the page he had written on.

" _It was a drawing,"_ she gasped to herself. He hadn't actually _written_ anything at all.

The picture he had drawn was stunning. Simple, just back and forth squiggles, varying in places by length and width, creating a ghostly yet movingly realistic image. _It was him, walking alone – his homburg atop…_ Julia's eyes dropped down to where William's feet hit the ground, his shadow – angling slightly away underneath him as he walked, long in front of him as if made from low light. She followed it to the small outward pokes at each side of his homburg at its end. And her eyes drifted over to see, _so slight, next to his shadow_ , there was a hint of a misty… _It was her shadow,_ she discovered with a speechless whisper inside her head, _her shadow, next to his –_ _her bun in her hair, her arm linked to his_. Her shadow was so feint, so dim, starting out darkest at the base on the ground, above it only emptiness, void, where her feet, next to his, should have been. And the hint of her shadow lessened away, getting lighter and lighter as her eyes moved down the softer and softer pencil shading towards the bottom of the newspaper page. Julia swallowed away a wave of emotion as she noted to herself that William had drawn the shadows turned towards each other while mid-step, to look, face to face, his shadow looking into hers, but her shadow had become so dim by the time it had reached where her head would have been that there was nothing there, and it broke her heart because she saw it so clearly in the little drawing he had made in the margin of the newspaper, _William's shadow found no gaze in return. Alone, it was… HE was, all alone._ It felt as if her heart had been completely squashed under the sadness. _Surely, this impasse needed to be mended_. A big sigh escaped her chest, propped up there in their bed without him, him downstairs struggling to sleep, alone, on the couch, Julia was overcome with despair, for truthfully, _truthfully, she did not see how to fix it._

) (

William rose early this third morning, no longer expecting to have been in their bed instead of on the couch. Every ounce of him drained weary with needing to endure further, missing Julia, so that he was sure he could not take it another day, pretending to be functioning when all he truly felt was despondent.

A flicker of a thought lightened him, " _Today the results of the tests Julia sent out to the University should came back."_ It was enough, he folded the blanket aside and stood. He would face the day.

) (

Hanging up the phone at her desk in the morgue, Julia caught herself smiling, just for a lingering moment. " _He would be happy. There was a clue!_ " she thought with a spring in her imaginary step. Immediately, she picked up the phone and called him, somehow keeping it a secret from herself that the pleasant feeling would fade. _They were still fighting, "well, not really fighting, but not together either,"_ the thoughts reminded.By the time she heard the movement on the other end of the line, _just before he would speak, before he would say, "Detective William Murdoch,"_ into the phone, she reassured herself that she could trust their professionalism. She fixed her posture in her chair, assuming the role of pathologist. Still, it caught her by surprise, the ache that burned inside of her upon hearing his voice in the phone.

Only a few minutes later, as she heard the big door bang shut behind him, and his footsteps coming closer as he walked along the long passageway towards her office, she felt jumpy, and she wished, for a second, that she had thought to put out the body parts to serve as something between them, something to focus their attention on, to help with the discomfort, to help with their act… at least the part of it that was an act – that they were _nothing more_ than detective and pathologist reviewing evidence in a case.

Improvising, she spread the report from the lab, and her subsequent notes from the phone calls, out on an edge of her desk, and she hurried to be standing when he rounded the corner. She was in the process of straightening out her skirt when their eyes met. _Synchronous, nervous_ , they greeted each other…

"Doctor…"

"Detective…"

Their professional titles spilled out into the space between them at the same time.

Uncomfortable with the blunder, William clamped his lips together and nodded. "What have you?" he said, followed by a deep breath.

Julia gazed down at the papers spread out on her desk and stepped closer. "Well, detective, we had two tests, one from the maggots found on the body…" their eyes touched as she paused and lifted her head, "Um, well, uh, just a reminder that there really shouldn't have been any maggots at all, it being too cold this time of year for flies."

He nodded. _It was interesting that his edginess, William finding himself becoming impatient with her wasting time, helped him to feel more in control…_ "Thank you," he adjusted, _realizing he was about to sound patronizing, he changed the words as they came out,_ "I knew there was a reason I went to… Yes, you recommended stables and slaughterhouses."

"Of course," she replied. She would move past the delay, _sorry for it, but certain it was best just to move on._ "Both tests provided the same result," she started getting back on track.

He nodded, excitement building, _getting the same results through two different pathways strengthened the conclusion…_

"Basically, our victim did have a drug in his system, and the maggots nearest to the injection site that we found behind his knee had the highest concentration of the drug, suggesting that that was the way it was introduced into the body…" _Julia knew she needed to hurry. Her husband would not be able to hold out much longer – What was the drug? Was it the cause of death? What effects would it have had on him? How quickly would he have succumbed to it? She imagined all these questions flaring at once inside his quick brain._

Her pace picked up, hurrying her report, "Fortunately, the colleague I had analyzing our samples was familiar with some of the most innovative surgical techniques being studied throughout the world. A part of her wanted to cite the sources, but she reminded herself of his eagerness and she let the impulse go. "It turns out that the drug in our victim is being studied for use in rendering the patient unconscious…" She frowned, _she needed to correct that_ , "Immobile rather, during surgical procedures. If given in a large enough dose, it is fatal…"

William's brain began to imagine _questioning doctors, surgeons, researchers… maybe even Julia's colleague…?"_

Julia had continued, "Ironically, it was discovered by anthropologists studying South American indigenous societies…"

She heard him huff. Her own annoyance emerged into the picture. "It's relevant, William," the emotion had pushed her to step out of the role, she sighed, "Detective," she corrected, tucking her chin down and leaning back, annoyed with herself. She took a deep breath and began again, "They, the aborigines, use it for hunting. It's shot by blowing a small arrow, more just a pointy stick, through a thin tube of bamboo, sending it, with the tip dipped in the poison, into the prey. Curare, they call it…"

Deep inside William's brain, there was a twitch… _a twitch or two_. He noted them, experience having taught him not to push them away, he decided to wait for them to present themselves more clearly. He focused harder on what Julia was telling him.

She had gone on, "It has a tranquilizing effect, but it paralyzes the muscles _**without**_ the victim losing consciousness. In many ways it sounds like an awful way to die. If the dose is high enough to kill, and it was for our victim…" She looked him in the eye for a second, and upon seeing him so interested was reminded, and so she added the more formal, "…detective."

He nodded.

She looked back at the papers, "Well, if the dose is high enough, then your diaphragm cannot contract and your breathing stops, your heart stops, and you just fade away, die, without being able to make a sound. It sounds truly awful…"

She watched him. He felt her eyes on him, his own eyes, staying down. William released a big sigh.

 _He was about to ask if there was more…_

Julia added, "It's intriguing, um… the chemistry…" suddenly realizing she had let her own enthusiasm pull her away from relevance to the case, the recognition stirring her into uneasiness for a moment, she went on, _feeling like it was getting too hot in the room,_ "Only if the drug gets into the blood does it affect the victim. Um, well, like with a poison dart or an arrow, or an injection, like in the case of our victim. If it's taken orally, it's harmless," her voice betrayed her marveling, "because curare compounds are too large to pass through the lining of the digestive tract to be absorbed into the blood. That's why the South American hunters can eat their curare-poisoned prey safely."

An electric jolt charged through her as she considered his expression, his reaction – triggered by the conflict she saw there, the twinkle in his, _very noticeable at this very moment, big brown, extremely gorgeous, eyes_ , suggesting he was fascinated, and at the same time that not so subtle frown at the corners of his mouth telling that she had annoyed him by getting off track. The net result was an extended gazing between them.

William broke it off, asking her, "So doctor, you believe he was given a large enough dose to be the cause of death?"

"I do," she answered, glad to be back to the case. "Um, detective… Something else to consider, if I may…"

"Of course," he nodded.

"Um, if you'll remember, the injection site on our victim was, uh, bruised and over-sized," she said, "I'm thinking about how he would come to be injected there, and with such an unusual force, and uh… Well, it got me thinking of the natives hunting the animals… you know, with their blowguns…"

He nodded, and he felt it zinging inside, _she was getting somewhere. This woman was amazing…_

"Well, it reminded me, um, there must be a way to shoot a drug into a man – like your electric gun shooting electricity into him, the one you invented to catch the killer that was after you… remember, the racehorse's names in that game – and you were the 'Artful Detective,' and that 'Wild-game Hunter,' that came after you. And you had that gun you invented…"

"The weaponized capacitor!" he declared the invention's name. William's fingers touched up to his neck – _remembering a stinging pain_ _there_ before his brain caught up with the memory. "The Pendrick Arrow," he said it as if in a daze, knowing she would be lost. "They shot some sort of dart into my neck…" his big eyes held firmly to hers, "I was out almost immediately."

"William?" she asked, her expression becoming scrunched up with worry, her voice taking on its characteristic squeak.

He would try to explain, "Remember, I flew it, Pendrick's airplane. The American's were trying to steal it – Alan Clegg had taken it from Meyers…" the memories came pouring back, "Julia! It was Meyers who shot me with the dart, well, Meyers' man. I remember it was a chemical I'd never seen anything like before…"

"Do you think this whole thing is spies, William? Meyers and Clegg and that lot?" Julia had begun to be horribly worried. She knew, she had always known, _"Cases ramped-up whenever these devious, powerful, slimy, sneaky, sly…"_ she stopped herself from thinking of more and more adjectives to describe the men she'd come to know in that dark and dangerous realm of espionage. _A part of her always feared,_ and she only just realized it now, _that they would recruit William, for his incredible brains and his courage and his cool demeanor under pressure_. She exhaled, telling herself, " _He'd make an awful spy… too good at heart..."_ The thought made her smile. And Julia stood there, with the fear, and the admiration, and the cherishing of him, and a part of her reminded that _they needed to make up_ … but there was a bump up against her pride and the hurt of not meeting up to his rigid moral standards. And then, the image of the doodle, his shadow drawing, that she had spotted in the margins of the newspaper last night flashed into her mind, and it tore at her heart, for, _"He was suffering too…"_

And there was warmth there, for a second, in their looking into each other.

Then William said, already placing his hat to his head, "I'll talk to the Inspector. We'll need to find out if Terrence Meyers is in town…"

"Of course," she gave, dampened.

He clamped his lips together and he gave her an endearingly winsome, and sweetly awkward at the same time, tip of the hat, and William turned on his heel and left. Julia let her eyes drop to the floor, somehow caught by the sight of the shifting of his shadow on the floor as he opened and stepped out the door, only the loud bang as it shut behind him snapping her out of it.

It felt like she thought it in her heart – _she needed to go see Father Clements._

)

The Sun was glowing low in the sky, the pink and golden light setting an ethereal and nuanced mood in the morgue. Julia had just returned from her inquiries into local hospitals and universities that were studying anesthesia for surgeries, her own quest into finding who, if anyone, was using the curare-like drug they had found in their victim. She was deep in thought, for she had also gone to speak with Father Clements, and there had been a shift in her heart. She was reaching to hang her coat when she saw them waiting for her on her desk – _ROSES! Roses for her_ , on her desk – _He wanted to make up too!_ There were only four flowers instead of the customary dozen, two yellow ones and oppositely placed to those two, two others that were a deep, deep, almost-black, purple. She knew them, " _Black Baccaras_ ," her head thought it, as she stepped closer. She was so excited she didn't even notice she was holding her breath.

She slowed herself down, took a deep breath… even though there were only four roses, " _Mm, the scent,"_ of roses flooded the back of her nose, mere millimeters from her brain, and soared her inside. _Before she would touch_ , she paused there, releasing a big exhale, trying to think. She recognized the symbols, _the colors, the numbers, they were significant. Yellow – for them… Two – their wedding, it meant the two of them together, and the Black Baccaras…"_ the puzzle tickled at her… The image of William's drawing, penciled in the margin of the newspaper, appeared in her mind… " _Shadows… The two dark roses were their shadows_ ," she gasped. _She knew his note would mend, if not the troubles in her mind, then those in her heart, for it already had, even before she had read it…_

" _ **All those cutting words and slamming doors,**_

 _ **and now it feels like my shadow**_

 _ **keeps looking for yours.**_

 _ **And all I want is for you to see,**_

 _ **WE are the reason, Julia,**_

 _ **the reason I strive to be."**_

 _His note was simple. And there was no denying it – their gravity towards each other, their love, was strong._ Folding the little note back into its envelope, she thought back to her conversation with Father Clements, and she found herself dwelling for a moment on how grateful she was that a man such as Father Clements was William's – _was their_ – priest. He was keenly insightful… _"He would have made an excellent psychotherapist,"_ she figured, with a secret chuckle. A swelling of tears flared upward taking her by surprise, remembering the moment she had yielded to the priest's care and found herself in tears, sharing with him what was devastating her the most, the deeper reason that she was keeping William at bay. She quickly swallowed away the memory.

A deep breath trying to ground back into the moment, she asked herself, _"Now, what was it had been thinking about? Oh, yes, Father Clements being a psychiatrist."_ Julia smiled, she truly believed she had never met anyone with as much authentic compassion as the young priest.

As a practitioner, Julia shook her head, thinking back to how he had done it. " _It was masterful, Socratic in method,"_ for Father Clements had asked much more than he had told. He had helped her to discover the most important things in all the muddle and mess of her emotions… _He reminded her of the first time she had come to see him. He had asked her_ _ **why**_ _she had come to the Church that day._ _There was an implication in the question, a suggestion, that_ _ **her motives had not changed**_ _._ And then she had just known, with a sort of 'click' inside of her heart, that she _would_ continue going with William to Church _**BECAUSE**_ it made him happy, and that was a good enough reason. Father Clements had helped her remember how much she treasured William's happiness. And she recognized that sometimes, when they are fighting, her concerns, and probably William's as well, became too enthralled with winning, and defending, and because of that she didn't see, they couldn't see, in the heat and fury of the battling between them, what it was that mattered most.

So, she had decided, and now, standing here with his flowers in this warm, low light, she felt how right it was deep in her core, in her soul. It was not _for_ William because he demanded it, or even requested it. No, she would do it _for_ him _because she loves him_ , and she loves to see him happy, and her going with him on Sundays makes him truly happy.

Her mind jumped to William's concerns about what ' _ **people'**_ would think, and the heat of her tears loomed once more. _That had been what had collapsed her_ , she remembered, _feeling that William was ashamed of her – it had hurt so badly it buckled her knees…_ And yet, telling Father Clements, just the simple act of telling him, seeing in his face that he grasped the wounding inside of her, had helped to heal it. No one could have convinced her better… _Well, perhaps the Inspector or George…?_ But Father Clements knew William in a different way than anyone else, somehow deeper, and the religious man's promise reassured her completely, his promise that he knew William, and it was not possible for William to feel shame when it came to her. The way Father Clements saw it, William's instinct, his call, being who he is, was to protect. She saw that now. It was not that he was standing in judgement and finding her lacking or shameful. Rather, it was fear, fear that _**others – 'people,'**_ would hurt her, and yes, would hurt him too, because _**they**_ thought badly of her. William, William, did not think badly of her, she knew that now.

 _He had merely been guilty of wanting something so much that he did not see the truth as prominently as the dream. If William was guilty of anything, it was of being blinded by the two of them, by his family, getting so close to what he wanted, so deeply it had become subconscious, BOTH OF HIS WORLDS AS ONE. Losing that stung so much, having that, or in this case thinking he had had it, and then realizing he did not, had made him feel betrayed, duped, somehow. That was the hurt behind, under, his striking out at her. Father Clements had made it clear today that_ _ **HE**_ _had been the one to suggest to William that she attend Sunday services to help with their efforts at adopting from Catholic orphanages, and in doing so he had helped remove some of her defensiveness. He had validated her sense of self as honest and true and sincere with the man she loved, and it had made her feel whole. It was unsaid between them, but Julia believed Father Clements had never been under the illusion that she would wholeheartedly embrace BEING a Catholic. It still surprised her that William had, at least on some level, hoped for it to be true._ A deep sigh, Julia was getting closer to what felt like conclusions. _Father Clements, she reasoned, had suggested that she attend Sunday Mass with William because he believed she was a good person. This was the same reason he had allowed their marriage in his Church. He said today that he was more convinced than ever that he had made the right choice – that their marriage was one of the happiest, most nurturing, "inspiring… he had said inspiring," marriages that he had ever seen._

A troubling jab entered her thoughts, and Julia stood there feeling the chill of wondering whether Father Clements _would still think so well of her if he was aware of her choice to have an abortion – a choice she still did not regret making?_ A familiar ache thumped in her heart, for she felt it, _she doubted he would_.

" _Still_ ," her thoughts moved to rescue her, _Father Clements had said that he could see that she was a good mother to William Jr…_ _"Wise,"_ she realized now, he had explained that " _it was God who would decide whether He would bring us a child to adopt. It would happen IF GOD FELT IT WAS RIGHT."_ He had smiled and looked down at her belly and said, " _Perhaps he found a different way."_ Father Clements said he had suggested she come to Sunday Mass because he believed "only good could come of it." And so, she felt a sense of happiness with her getting to the bottom of it all, _she would go until she was too uncomfortable with the pregnancy, and she had stopped working in the morgue… and probably for a while after the baby was born as well. She would resume attending Mass with him when the baby is old enough – "We'll have to get Claire-Marie to work Sundays_ …" her mind began to consider the details… _She would tell him when he came home._ She blew out the sudden flare of pressure with the thought, " _ **IF**_ _he comes home_ …" for she still had not heard whether or not Terrence Meyers was milling about in Toronto, whether or not this case was one of THOSE intense and puzzling and terrifying cases, and her subconscious warned of the encroaching shadows.

) (

 _The detective had not spent the night on the couch_ , the housekeeper was happy to note to herself the next morning. Eloise smiled as she clicked on the kitchen light. There, in the center of the table, _roses!_

 _Eloise didn't notice, but it was really roses –_ _**AND their shadows**_.

)) ((

The tale of _The Lady, or the Tiger_ centers around dilemmas. When one's choices are opposed, it can feel as if you are confronting a man-eating tiger inside of you. William Murdoch felt this way sometimes. For William, his Catholic Faith was like his shadow, it would always be there. The challenge was fitting the other guarantee in his life – Julia Ogden, with it. In many ways, he found it _felt_ like he had to choose… to choose when he had learned of her abortion… to choose when he had learned she could not have children because of it. But with the turning of the pages of this chapter, William had come to see that there are _**TWO**_ sources of light in his life – it had to be so, for he had _two shadows on the ground_. One of those lights was his Catholic Faith, and the other was his Lady, and for William Murdoch, that Lady was Julia. William knew in his deepest self, that he would never choose.

But when it comes to shadows, there was another noticing that should be garnered.

Don't forget the guardian angel that had come into William's imagination that night as he told his bedtime story to their little son, using animal shadow puppets on the ceiling, and the angel his intuition had sent him had provided a foretelling with her advice – to notice the changing shadows, the lengths, the angles on the ground. He already knew, he had always known, that he could use the shadows on the ground to find the sources of light in his life, thus his recent grasping of embracing _both_ his Faith and his Love. Perhaps it was this subconscious reminder from his angel that had helped him come to see it more clearly.

But, so too, the angel had told of another important aspect of shadows, " _Shadows can tell what is coming."_ And so now, the angel had alerted William, at the level of his very soul, that he was in the shadow of the Tiger, through his own premonition, as told through her, as told to himself, deep in his bones, somewhere below what he was consciously aware of, _that there were dangers in the wind_. If he had asked himself, if he had asked his Lady, he would have known. The shadow that hovered at the periphery far-off on the horizon, unseeable if you looked straight at it, _it was_ _the case_ , the case that had gone unsolved for so long. He would soon have no choice but to face the flesh that made the shadow. _Surely it was coming…_ _ **The Tiger**_ _._

)) ! ((


	21. 21: Easy TigerT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 21: Easy Tiger_T

As Julia tucked William's dinner back into the icebox, and readied to turn out the kitchen light and head up to bed without him, her eyes paused on the four roses in the center of the table – two yellow and the other two so very, very starkly dark in contrast. The drawing he had made in the margin of the newspaper, of himself walking all alone, appeared in her mind, his long shadow turning in search of hers next to it. She fought away the chill as her mind flipped the image and tried to place _her_ in the drawing instead of him, alone, _without him_. She pushed the thought away, _the one about how much she hated cases that included spies, particularly Terrence Meyers and Alan Clegg, and the thought behind that one, about William's life being in danger_ , burying them with the thought that _she would have a small glass of whiskey to help her to fall asleep._

Up the stairs, leaving only the foyer lamp on for him, she remembered standing with William in the morgue just yesterday, and him reaching up and touching the exact spot on his neck as he remembered being shot with a dart, _a dart that had probably been laced with a curare-based drug – the same chemical compounds that had killed their latest victim,_ back when he was investigating a murder involving one of James Pendrick's inventions…

She surprised herself with a smile. " _William flew that airplane!"_ she thought as she remembered the Pendrick Arrow. And then the cascade of memories plummeted by… _William descending down into the bowels of a rocket aimed at New York City to defuse it and save the world, or at least that piece of it, and in doing so stopping the war Clegg had planned between Canada and the United States that likely would have followed… The next memory – William flying, as close to a bird as a human can be, in a winged bodysuit, jumping bravely out of a hot air balloon up so high in the sky there was barely any oxygen, up in the stratosphere, so high that the blue skies of day begin to transition to the black, star-twinkled ones of night… Another memory, more recent – William hurled underneath Lake Ontario in the vacuumized tube of a deathly speed machine… And then – William chasing after the escaping Sally Pendrick – the first time, so many years before the Pink Panther Diamond, William ducked behind a horse-drawn, hopefully protective, reflective shield, and at the very last moment releasing that little chestnut hero-horse, "Sonny,"_ Julia remembered the little horse's name _– the same horse that had led her ambulance through the snowstorm, after William had saved her life by performing the Cesarean section surgery on her on their dining room table, and behind the horse blazing the trail ahead, next to her in the ambulance, he held their miracle-son in his arms, back so long before that, William the one almost shot with Tesla's microwave deathray, Sally Pendrick's criminal ticket to wealth, a weapon to kill masses and masses of innocent people, destroyed as the lethal wave bounced back off of the shield in front of William and exploded her carriage instead of his… and… and…_

" _And now?"_ her brain asked her, and her heart skipped a beat. " _Now he chased after Terrence Meyers again,"_ she answered herself and swallowed down the fear with the sweet burn of the whiskey. And then, thoughts going full circle, she wondered how William had not died, back then, from the curare-laced dart pierced into his neck, and she answered herself, " _The dosage_ ," and she walked passed their bedroom to softly push open William Jr.'s door, and she gazed down at their two-year old son sleeping in his bed and felt the warmth flow into her heart, and she was grateful for the moment.

)

By the time William came in, Julia had given up on falling asleep and was upstairs in bed, her senses on high alert, reading a novel. She wondered at the severity of her reaction to him being home, _William home safe,_ as the flood of relief seemed to thoroughly drown each cell in her body leaving her with the sensation that she was filled with a thousand pounds of lead, and she reassuringly told herself that the incapacitating pain of it would pass.

She was up out of the bed and halfway down the stairs before she had even decided to go to him.

Julia stopped just after she rounded the corner of the stairway with the sight of him, stunned by the momentary forces soaring between them as their eyes met in the low lamplight. William's mind played a memory that stung his heart so deeply he felt his throat swelling shut with the hurt of it, and the back of his eyes burned with the hint of tears. Their places had been reversed, _him the one halfway down the big fancy staircase, in the toff's house, questioning family members as he investigated a murder. She should have been in Buffalo, with her toff-doctor fiancé. She shouldn't have been THERE, touchable, reachable, in front of him, looking so incredibly beautiful that she stole his breath away, haunting him, sucking the heart out of him so that the blood ran to his feet and he had felt paralyzed and dizzy…_

"Julia," he said, breaking the silent spell. And then he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her admitting, apologizing, for _he had worried her – again._

"Did you find Meyers?" she asked, grounding them both back in the case at hand, as she went back to stepping down the remaining steps to greet him.

A sudden panic seared through him with what he had almost said, the heat of dread choking his throat closed. William swallowed and tried to push himself through it. "I… I, uh, had to wait…" _He would say it, say her name,_ "Um, I had put a call in… in to Ettie… in Winnipeg…" his eyes, so gorgeous brown, tugged at hers. So much shared while unspoken between them with the look.

Ettie Weston – there was history there. _It seemed to keep coming up,_ this madam from William's past. Her being back in their lives again made more poignant because Julia was pregnant, _again_ , insecure and jealous, _again_ , and once more, William had had a secret rendezvous with his past lover – " _though this time just a phone call,"_ the reminder came, " _and he had not kept it a secret, not this time…"_

"I see," Julia answered him. Her eyes held firm, _she would try, try to trust._

There was no denying the pressure he felt, William reaching up to rub his brow, unaware of the betrayal that this particular gesture afforded to his current state of distress. "If anyone would know what Terrence Meyers has been up to, it would be Ettie. Um…" William reminded himself to breathe, "It's later there… the hour, in Winnipeg, to the west… as you know…" William's lips clamped together as he realized his discomfort could not be concealed. He decided there was no need to remind Julia that Meyers and Ettie were lovers. He added, in a rush, "And she keeps late hours… with her, um, profession…" He blew out the pressure through his pursed lips and rubbed his brow again, and then his heart wholly erupted with joy when Julia giggled.

"Yes," Julia gave and tucked her arm in his. "We'll heat up your dinner. You can tell me all about it," _she pulled off sounding 'cheery,'_ she thought.

Together, they reviewed the case – cases, when adding in the first victim from six months ago, the one with the oddly shaped, month-old, bruise on his thigh. Both victims had been unidentifiable, the first victim shot in the back of the head, so lacking a face, and having fingermarks with no known connections to an identity. The second body, chopped-up with an axe into multiple pieces, and the pieces that would have helped to identify the man – his head and his fingertips, nowhere to be found, assumed dumped into the nearly frozen-over, wintry Don River which ran along their Body Farm property. It was this latest victim's odd wound behind his left knee that had given them their latest clue – an injection mark that had led William to search for Terrence Meyers. The mark was badly bruised around the site where the over-sized needle had entered into the victim's skin and punctured the deeper popliteal artery, the bruising suggesting the needle had impacted with unusual force. They had speculated that the victim had been shot with a specialized gun – a gun much like William's "weaponized capacitor," the electrified gun William had used to take down the "Big Game Hunter," the man who had intended to kill him back on that strange case where players sought to be the last man standing to win a prize, and ironically, it had been William who had won in the end – for truly he was an "Artful Detective." The drug shot into the current victim was a curare-based drug that paralyzed the muscles, and at the dosage used on the burly man, it would have stopped his diaphragm, and thus his ability to breathe, and also stopped the beating of his heart, leading to his death. The connection made was to William and James Pendrick being shot with tranquilizing darts in their necks, back when Pendrick's airplane had been stolen by Terrence Meyers, and then stolen from Meyers by Alan Clegg and the Americans. _**Enter the spies.**_

Julia sat around the corner of their kitchen table sipping her hot chocolate as William caught her up with what he had learned on the various spies' whereabouts while he ate his, very late, supper.

William put his fork down, chewing, and reached for his cup of hot chocolate. He swallowed and then sipped. "Ettie was with Meyers in Winnipeg when our victim was killed," he said. "But Meyers could have had someone else here in Toronto at the time, some other Canadian spy who could've shot our victim with the curare," William wrinkled his face showing his uncertainty. "She said Meyers had gone out west after that… She had heard him talking on the phone about Seattle, so there must be something up with the Americans…"

Julia felt the chill run up her spine. _Truly, she despised that vile Alan Clegg. Yes, Terrence Meyers had tried to kill William at times, it was true – but with that slimy Clegg, trying to hurt William seemed nearly a guarantee. Clegg had not only tried to kill William himself, even recently while William was on the meat-packing case, but that deranged ex-American spy… "Graveson,"_ Julia remembered the terrifying man's name. _The man was so dangerous that even the Americans wanted nothing to do with him. Graveson had been set out to assassinate William… and had shown up right here – here in this house, to kill him!_

Julia tried to focus. William had gone on.

Ettie had told him she would tell Meyers to call him, but she had no idea when that would be.

Julia sighed. Inside, she was making efforts to calm down.

"I've put calls out to all the stationhouses to be on the lookout for Clegg as well," William had dropped his eyes away from hers, sensing her battling with her fears. He watched his fork push the food around on his plate. "The man who had made the dart gun that shot us… myself and Pendrick. I remembered his name – Arthurs. Unfortunately, the man being a spy, I don't have much else to…"

Julia reached out for his hand, taking it with a degree of unexpected passion. Their eyes rushed to connect, and she instantly felt such a mix of emotions she yielded to giving him the " _admitting-it"_ corner-of-the-mouth wrinkle. She exhaled some of the built-up pressure and half teased, "Easy there, tiger," she said, "It's better if it's _NOT_ that kind of case, don't you think?"

She saw his reluctance.

"It's just…" she considered disclosing her worries, and with that she felt the potential of falling too deeply into a panic herself, and so she pushed her dread down as much as she could and tried to sound rational, "Well, I would argue that you shouldn't go snooping where the evidence doesn't lead…"

"But it does go there," William held his ground...

" _Dog with a bone,_ " Julia's head told her.

She caved, accepting what she wished she would not, "Perhaps," she gave, for she had to admit that there was a real possibility that there was a connection, even though that fact absolutely terrified her.

Now it was William who sighed, for he had considered it, _her worry, the baby growing inside of her, their beautiful little son sleeping upstairs. They'd been here before. There was nothing he could say to alleviate her fear, he knew this._ He reached over and tucked a curl behind her ear, and then he did the only thing he could. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, and took a deep breath, and rubbed his thumb along her beautiful, pink and silky-smooth cheek, and he looked into those magnetic blue eyes of hers, and he let her love, and his love for her, fill through him and pour into his heart. He remembered all of the times she had sobbed in his arms after their making deep and hearty and magnificently powerful love, and he loved her so much it ached down into his marrow, and he said "Sorry," to her, and he watched her eyes reveal her pain, and she nodded and pinched her lips together, and then she pulled up her courage…

And she moved on to something else, and she said, "Claire-Marie said that William Jr. used the toilet today. All day, clean nappies."

William chuckled. He glanced down at her belly and added, "One out of nappies just in time for the next one to be filling them up all over again…"

And by the time their eyes met again, there was only happiness in the air.

Julia pushed away from the table and brought his hand down to cover the small "Murdoch Bump." The intimacy between them strong, she confided, "I find I'm hoping, only a little bit, that it's a girl. Our little Mary."

"Oh?" William replied.

Her mind hurried to wonder, speaking aloud as it did, "I find when I talk… to _her_. It just feels like it's _her_ that I'm talking to." Suddenly she felt embarrassed, for there was not one ounce of logic to what she was saying…

"A girl would be lovely," he said reassuringly. "And of course, a boy would too…" he gave her an opening.

And she smiled such a big smile and agreed, "I'd love a boy, our Daniel. Yes, that would be absolutely wonderful too."

"Good," he said in conclusion. And they drank down the last sips of their hot chocolates and cleaned up and went up to bed, for tomorrow there was another long day ahead.

) (

William had bought the surprise tickets weeks ago, the gesture heartwarming because going the opera was far from his favorite. The Murdoch's were going on a date – dinner and La Bohème! Added to the joy of the occasion, all pathways leading to any spy connections with their latest unsolved case – the second victim of the Body-Dumper, _as the newspapers never seemed to let them forget,_ had led to dead ends. There was a modicum of relief in knowing that Terrence Meyers and Alan Clegg would not be showing up to spin their world into mayhem – at least not this time.

While up on the stage, a man of little means gave up the love-of-his-life so that she could go off to marry a toff, a man who could provide the wealth she needed to survive her illness, William spent most of the night glancing sideways, to enjoy more, watching _his wife_ as she watched the story unfolding. Julia Ogden noticed this, inside her head giving herself her own Mona-Lisa smile, the one gesture that could have warned William that she had the upper hand somehow. " _At least he's not sleeping,"_ she kept the thought to herself, then added, " _or obsessing over a case..."_ Just before the heartbreaking scene on the stage pulled her back in, she felt the piercing of the pain from the memory that rose up inside of her – _William had watched the show that night, afterwards excitedly deliberating on the irony of "being earnest" and the title of the play, just before she had told him she was leaving him to go to Buffalo…_ It was the surging of that hurt inside of her that likely magnified the potency of the scene up on the stage, the hero's love dying in his arms, saying goodbye forever, the opera ending with such a deep sadness that the heart felt the need to be healed.

The devastation heavy in the theater, the applause was delayed. Sniffles everywhere, and men rushing to hide their own tears, many of them stood and swiped at their cheeks before they clapped, having had, as William had too, already passed their handkerchiefs to their wives. William guided Julia back down into their seats. _She needed a minute._ She turned to catch his eye, and she gave him the wrinkled-up-corner-of-the-mouth look. There was a hint of embarrassment, and William basked in the surge of love for her that he felt flaming in his chest. The couple leaned and huddled their heads closer together, and so tenderly wiping a tear from her cheek, he told her how much he enjoyed seeing the changes in her as she had watched the stage, her eyes dancing and twinkling, her gasps, and those glossy tears, "It's as if I could see a lifetime expressed in your face. And I find… I find myself so head-over-heels in love with you, Julia, that it astounds me…" And Julia's face wrinkled up into tears all over again as the flood of emotions completely overwhelmed her.

They had not noticed that everyone else had remained standing, and that the audience had all exited the theater around them. There had been photographs, flashbulbs strobing and popping off in the distance, muffled voices, the bustle of a slowly moving crowd. But now, now it was quiet, and he did what he nearly never did in such a public place as this theater, he kissed her. They would not know until the next morning that they had been photographed during this moment of romantic intimacy. It would not be the first time that their kissing, their love, had been made public – far from it. And, as usual, many of the headlines would use the picture as a way to dig at one of them, this time William would be their target. And, also as usual, Madge Merton would use the same picture and tell the public how remarkable this couple's love for each other was, using the latest secret photograph to make the power of it clear.

)

Arriving home, Julia reminded him they would need Eloise to send his tuxedo out to be cleaned right away, for they had her big charity event next week, and he had promised her that he would go. She watched him inhale deeply as he let the acceptance of his misery sink down into him more wholly, and she giggled, and, as usual, it lightened his soul.

) (

The next day the newspaper headlines ignored William's most recent three cases, all of the criminals involved in these latest cases caught and confessed, and instead the stories focused on William's incompetence in cracking the only two unsolved cases in the past year, the ones that each involved the victims being dumped at their controversial Body Farm. All of the papers included the same photograph and had headlines like, "Detective and Wife Attend Opera While Body-Dumper Still Runs Rampant."

Despite the intended venom, Julia found herself entranced by the picture of the two of them right there in black-and-white for all the world to see. In it they were just about to kiss, alone in the theater, or at least they had thought they had been alone. She remembered that the first time such a photo had caught her like this – _it had been with fireworks in the background,_ _with William kissing her in the doorway_ , she remembered with a jolt in her womb and such a flare in her heart as her mind added the words, " _repeatedly, William kissing her repeatedly, over, and over, and over again,"_ that magical, wonderful, beautiful, unbelievable night when she had told him that she and Darcy had parted, and he had told her, then, that he _had_ seen his future, and then he had said those dizzying words to her, and in saying them he had completely given himself to her, he had leaned close and winsomely disclosed, _"It was you,"_ William Murdoch saying that _SHE was his future_ , and she knew without a doubt that he loved her as wholly as she loved him, and the fireworks had fired _inside_ of her as much as they had flashed and boomed and sparkled above them in the sky, with the pure explosive joy of it. And then, afterwards, there had been the fireworks of the public uproar, "The Scandal of the Century," for that breathtaking, fairytale, dream-come-true had happened during the New Year celebration of the coming of the twentieth century, and public scorn over a toff woman who was married to a toff doctor falling in love with a lowly Catholic policeman had sent her away to Vienna, but she had seen the headlines, and she had seen the beautiful picture, and like now, she had undeniably gloried with what she saw in it, the subtle truth, as if hinted at in the whispers of flickering candlelight, the profound love that the secret little picture revealed.

She took a sip of her coffee and said, "I quite like the photograph."

William and Julia shared a look.

The detective blew the rumbling pressure out through his pursed lips. _He had never been one to be comfortable with public displays of affection, not to mention being publicly ridiculed for his failures._ It tugged at her heart.

"You'll solve it, William," she heard herself say. And she knew in her heart that he would, because he was amazing and brilliant, and all he needed was a little luck, just the tiniest, tiniest budge in the case.

William smiled… _so gorgeous,_ so unexpected. William Murdoch was going to tease…

" _WE_ will," he corrected.

"You're right," she giggled, "We will."

Julia reminded herself that having the press hounding him always took its toll on William, and he would become wholly consumed all over again with his staring at his drawing board, and everything he thought, everything he spoke of, asked, dreamed, would be about these two victims. She reminded herself to be patient with him, and she reminded herself that _**this, too,**_ was one of the things she loved about this man.

) (

It took nearly another week for Madge Merton's story to hit the newspaper stands. Eloise had been on the lookout for it, and today she had brought both the _Toronto Gazette_ and the _Toronto Daily Star_ for the detective this morning. The two newspapers were left at William's place at the head of the kitchen table, and as the Murdoch family ate their breakfast, William perused them.

Fortunately, the front page of the Gazette had nothing about the Constabulary, and even better news, Madge Merton's story in her column, " _Page for Women_ " in the Star, looked to be favorable. William had turned to the page, knowing the column was always on page six, and read out its intriguing title, "Beauty in the Midst of Gloom." The uplifting story gained little more than a glance from William, who seemed more interested in searching the news for comments on the bothersome case at hand, but Julia had noticed right away that the same photograph from the opera was at the center of the page.

William handed the paper over to Julia almost immediately. She put down her fork and held the story out in front of herself with both hands, preparing the fully indulge. She would not know what had reminded her of the dreadful moment, but the power of it made her inhale, almost gasp, and it drew William's eye.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "It reminded me, for a second…" she exhaled before she explained, "Leslie Garland's photograph…" all she needed to say for him to understand.

Off in the background, it niggled Eloise, for _the reference meant nothing to her_. And she sighed, accepting the fact that this couple that she adored so much sometimes shared what seemed to be a secret code.

A gush of hot air shot out of William's nostrils with the recognition of which photograph it was that Julia had remembered, and his lips clamped together tight as he gave her a nod. "Logical," he answered her. His brain pulled the blackmailing photograph from their past forward in his mind, and he remembered that _Julia had looked so incredibly beautiful that night, the night they had gone to see Rigoletto, in her golden dress and with those tiny little white flowers sprinkled in her fiery hair, and she had pulled him aside because he had been overly involved with his incessant thinking about a case rather than enjoying the opera, and he had shared with her that he was worried that he would fail, and she had reminded him that 'THEY' would solve it, and then she had looked over her shoulder as she insisted, and his heart thumped wild and breathless in his chest for he knew she was about to do something daring, and with a delicious air of teasing she had said, "Yes… 'WE," and then she had taken him to the wall and she had kissed him, and he had NOT been able to stop himself, for he was thoroughly charmed, and he had kissed her back… And it was THAT beautiful moment that had been so deviously captured – set-up actually, by Leslie Garland, with the intent to keep them apart forever, and now it remained a piece of their story, and it always would be… bittersweet._

For her part, Eloise had become distracted by remembering what she had read in the story earlier this morning. _Madge Merton understood the inspiration she felt from this couple_. And the famous columnist had written to the world about how this picture, from one romantic night in the middle of a raging lifetime of gruesome and horrific cases to solve, was also heartwarming, for it does each and every one of us good to see that such a strong love as this one, a love as exceptional as the one binding this couple together, can be found in such a dark place as the world in which these two people tread each day. Madge Merton had used the picture, and the _timing_ of this picture, which the press had used as a reason for attacking the couple, to explain, once again, why it was that Detective Murdoch and Dr. Ogden were, and why it was that they truly should be, 'Toronto's Favorite Couple.'

Back at the kitchen table, having cut-up William Jr.'s ham and eggs into small pieces so that the little toddler could use his smaller fork to eat at the table with them, Julia was reading the story, her eyes moving left to right across the page. And _it tickled in the back of her mind somewhere_ , and her heart surged as she realized _it was important_ , even before she remembered what it was, or had made any connection whatsoever to this case, _she just KNEW… it was important!_

Her words came out without thinking them through, this time her gasp undeniable, William homed in with all his might. _There was something about the look of her…_

"It was about an elk, I remember," she started to chase after the clue.

William tried, his brain firing down multiple paths with lightening-speed.

Eloise dumbstruck with such a strange clue, and spoon dropped down to the stove, " _An elk?"_ her brain tried to solve the puzzle too.

Julia's eyes remained fixed down on the blurred-out newsprint. "Yes. Yes. The article was about an elk, a _female_ elk that had been…"

"Gored by the male," William finished her thought, letting her know he was with her.

She lifted her face out of the paper and their eyes met. The thrill, the fascinating, magical ride these two had shared together so many times before, was beginning anew.

William's brain ran forward, thinking, remembering. "The male had gored the female because he'd been frustrated by the cruel teasing of a bunch of teenage boys… on the other side of the pen…?" he asked her.

Julia nodded. "Yes. Um, but…" Suddenly a wave of doubt hit her. _She did not see_. Her lips clamped tight feeling impatient with herself and she looked down at the paper again. She took a deep breath, sensing the weight of William's eyes on her. She heard William take a deep breath… " _Patience isn't his high suit either_ ," she teased herself.

Dog with a bone that he was, William would not let go of this possible clue so easily, and so he dug into what he remembered hoping it would recharge her spark, "They had to euthanize the female, right?"

William twitched seeing Julia's jaw tighten with annoyance. She sighed, "Yes." Then she regretted her irritation with him, for _after all,_ _ **she**_ _had started it_. "William, I'm sorr…"

But his next question, _William somehow making the connection her own brain had so vaguely sensed was there but had lost_ , this wondrous man floored her as he interrupted, "Did they use the dart gun… and the poison?"

 _Now this look between them – this one, had fireworks._

"You are amazing, William Henry Murdoch…" she said shaking her head. And then she giggled, with seeing how much it bothered him, his having to wait, through her marveling, and her complimenting, and her adoring him, instead of _**telling him**_ what the clue was, the clue that he needed to know so desperately that it burned down to the inside of his very bones. Julia put the paper down and turned her whole body to face him. "I assume they euthanized the female elk using the same drug cocktail that is commonly used to put animals to sleep, and that is not our murderer's curare-based drug…" she started, finding the need to repress the bubbles of giggles rising upwards in her chest when she noticed that William was holding back an exasperated sigh. "But… Well, I believe the article said… and well, if they didn't then somewhere else I got the idea in my head…"

William _did_ sigh…

"Picture it William. Picture the scene. A crowd watching on in horror as the male elk runs haywire back and forth across the fenceline wanting nothing more than to get out and trample and stomp and kick and stab those horrid boys, and so frustrated, and pumped with panicked rage that he turns on his mate and flings her gored and punctured body into the air, the female landing, blood spewing and opened flesh, and he, the male, he is only more crazed after that, rearing and pawing, goring at the pen's fence, his antlers getting wedged and his whole body fiercely, wildly, shaking them free, the fence threatening to give way…" She paused, her own brain catching up to what she was saying, _suddenly remembering her little son was sitting right there next to her and regretting the vivid detail._ Her eyes dropped away, down to the table, overtaken with shame. Subtle, her glance in the little boy's direction. She focused so intently on William's expression, as seen out of the corner of her eye, with a surge of dread… _Was HE disgusted and shocked with her too…?_

William glanced at William Jr., the little boy's big brown eyes touching his father's. His mind replayed the bedtime story he had told his son that night, that night not so long ago, with his hand-shadow puppets up on the ceiling. "The female elk had a guardian angel, too," he told his little son, "Don't you worry about her, Little Man. God's keeping her safe now."

"Sorry," Julia said. She reached over to her son and rubbed his back, then trickled her fingers up into his black curls as she leaned down and kissed his head. "Sorry," she whispered to him.

She imagined what she wished the little boy would do to relieve her guilt, she imagined her little, _only a few months older than two years old_ , she imagined her little son saying to her, " _It's O.K. Mommy_ ," and going back to _kicking his little legs under the table and focusing, with so much intent it always reminded her of William, on 'perfectly' poking his "little-boy fork" into each piece of food and getting it to his mouth without a spill…_

" _He's too young to know_ ," she told herself, " _to know 'how,' even if he could grasp 'what_." And then it came to her – to try to teach him.

She whispered to him, "Mommy feels bad for saying scary and upsetting things… my Little One. But Daddy's right, the elk doesn't feel any pain any more. And I think you are so sweet for caring about that elk, hmm?" she asked, as she gave him a squeeze and another little kiss to the fluff of curls atop of his head. "Can you tell Mommy…?" she said, "Cause Mommy's worried," and she lowered her voice even more and she whispered, "and I would feel so much better if I knew you were O.K."

There was a pause, and, in it, Julia realized that she was asking too much from one so little.

"Wanna go zoo… See baby hip-mus…?" he asked.

Eloise jumped in, explaining, "Claire-Marie, um, and Mrs. Jones… They told him and little Alice about the baby hippopotamus that was born at the zoo a few weeks ago."

"I see," Julia responded, her heart filling with relief.

Eloise added, "There's a baby elephant expected soon too."

"Well that's wonderful," Julia declared, and she gave her little boy a hug. Then she looked over at William and gave him her wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth apology look, and said "It's a bit cold for a trip to the zoo…?"

William replied, looking to his son, "Maybe in a month, when it's a bit warmer." And, even with all that drama, William Murdoch looked back to his wife, **edgy** , _for by-golly, he still really wanted to know…!?"_

Julia sighed and ran the facts through her head thinking to find a way to finish… _"to get to the point, about the dart gun and the curare…"_

Her voice low and calm, she said, "The staff…" her blue eyes honed on her husband's beautiful brown ones, checking for his nod, which came quickly, "They needed to get in there, but it was… dangerous…" She saw William begin to connect the dots, and the thrill churned back into her gut.

The first memory to rise up emerged into William's mind, " _Higgins and George, Yes, it was Higgins and George that had seen it. An escaped tiger from a circus. Saber – its name was Saber,"_ William remembered. _Higgins had been the brave one, hit it with his truncheon. A circus hand shot it – killed it. Julia autopsied it, it had killed its trainer, starved to desperation by the murderer… Did zoo officials kill this male elk too?"_ the question followed…

"I believe the article said that they sedated the male – with a special dart gun, so that they could keep their distance without killing him. So, I think, at the z…"

"Yes," William's excitement was bursting, "Yes. It would need bigger needles… and bigger doses, for the large size of the animals… That matches with the wound on the back of our victim's knee, and the blood and the maggots?!"

A smile back on Julia's face, "Yes, yes it would," she agreed. Then she added, "And, if they used the curare, it would paralyze the animal quite quickly."

Such a twinkle in his eye, he concluded, "It could be our murder weapon?!"

"Yes. Yes, I think it could be," Julia agreed again.

William pushed away from the table, suddenly in too much of a hurry to finish eating.

"Oh," Eloise reacted from off to the side. "Uh… I'll clean up," she recovered quickly, adding, "I can watch Master Murdoch until Claire-Marie comes back down."

"That would be wonderful, Eloise," Julia thanked her.

Both parents lifted and hugged and kissed their little son good-bye, and William thought to himself as he readied to leave for the day that _he would be bringing a toy animal of some kind home tonight for the boy… "Maybe they'll have one at the zoo, in a little shop. If not, the toy store then…"_ he was still thinking about it as he held the sleeve on Julia's coat for her, and then he tapped his homburg to his head.

Out the door – the hunt was on.

) (

Ever since Murdoch had gotten married it was rare that the detective was in the Stationhouse before the Inspector arrived, and, like today, it usually meant that he was excited about some obscure clue or other on a troubling case. This time, Inspector Brackenreid had the 'Murdoch-double-barreled-shotgun' to deal with, for the man was waiting for him in his office – with his wife.

"Murdoch. Dr. Ogden," he greeted the couple as he hung his coat and hat and tilted his cane into the stand. _How was it possible that he already wanted a scotch!?_

The couple laid out their latest discovery and its connections to the most recent victim in the Body-Dumper case. The Inspector agreed that there was good reason to go to the Riverdale Zoo and get the possible weapon – this " _dart gun_ " thingy, as they were calling it. Murdoch argued that they needed to bring along a few constables to question workers there. The Inspector suggested that he was overreacting, seeing more smoke than fire. But then Murdoch took it a step further.

"Perhaps we need a warrant for a search…" the detective seemed to be thinking out loud more than conversing.

The Inspector saw that zealous look in his man's eyes.

William went on, "Alderman Lamb owns the zoo…"

 _Dread flowed over the Inspector's face_. It was Julia who saw it. She looked to William _. Her husband had no idea_ …

"There's a good chance Lamb won't want to let us search," William continued, _oblivious._

The Inspector stood from his chair on the other side of his desk.

 _So surprised_ , William finally looked at him.

The Inspector leaned over, wedging his hands down firmly onto the top of his desk, and his face began to redden, and his air became gruff, and he warned, "Murdoch, you bloody well know that Alderman Lamb is the kind of TOFF you want to stay away from. Tread lightly. Bollocks. It wasn't enough for you, huh? Him taking the Pink Panther case away from you!? Because you were too gung-ho, Murdoch. And you wouldn't bloody listen. He'll kill this case, too, if you're not careful. You'd best go easy, tiger," the Inspector said that last part with a growl aimed right in the detective's face.

Julia watched the stare down. _Really, sometimes men just astounded her._

"Gentlemen," she used the term with the slightest edge of sarcasm in her voice. The doctor placed her hands on her hips and tried to sigh more than huff, but she caught William's worried look, and, as a result of it, she felt her insides repress a giggle. _She would be the rational one for a moment, and sometime from now all three of them would realize how ridiculous it was that_ _ **the pregnant lady**_ _was the one in the room who was reasonable._ "May I suggest the Inspector accompanies you, William… to the zoo. Inspector Brackenreid lends an air of authority to your enquiries, and there's a good chance they will give you the dart gun without even calling Alderman Lamb," she offered the compromise.

The Inspector stepped back. "Your suggestion is worth a try, doctor," he gave. Then he added, "Besides, if you're going to go after the bigwigs, Murdoch, you'd best not bugger it up. You have to have some real evidence first. Even if there is a connection to the man's zoo, there is nothing to involve Lamb himself…"

"Yes sir," William humbled. He had been unwilling to say what was really bothering about Alderman Lamb, _because it didn't really make any sense_. _He had to admit to that_ , even if it was only inside his head. But still, it bothered him. _There was a connection, albeit coincidental, seemingly too far off from the facts, but it was there – the body had been chopped-up into tiny little pieces with an axe, and it was Alderman Lamb's son, retired, and CONVICTED, Detective Malcolm Lamb, who had committed the similar crime in the past. And yes!, that coincidence, most definitely, bothered him._

From somewhere off to the side of his mind, William remembered Julia had said, " _accompanies you, William…"_ and that _implied that she was not going._ And so much happened inside him for a second that he seemed to just stand there, dazed. _Worry and guilt_ … and then he chased down that string of thought – " _Dr. Elizabeth Mole! Oh yes,"_ he remembered. _The woman was very… voluptuous_. And he remembered that pressure-filled night when Inspector Marcel Guillaume, from France, and the _very modern_ Frenchman's wife… " _Oh,"_ William's brain rang up the racy woman's name _, "Angelique_ ," had shown up for dinner and… _"Oh, holy Lord. Maybe it was better if Julia didn't go!?"_ And another part of his brain told himself _how much of an asset Julia was at a crime scene. Julia would know what to look for – the dart gun, the right sized needle, the curare drug. She was amazing in reading witnesses, with her psychiatry training, and she was… she was Julia, that one amazing, brilliant woman who completed his life, and he wanted her by his side…_

"Julia," William said, "You will be joining us?" the question came.

 _The Riverdale Zoo was a bit of a long carriage ride away, and she did have a class tonight, and she wasn't explicitly needed… but she had really, really wanted to go_ , so she found herself stuck for an answer, resulting in a prolonged pause.

In that pause, William had an idea. Mindful of the presence of the Inspector, he tried his best to take her aside. The Inspector saw the writing on the wall and stepped out, saying, "I'll have them ready the carriage, detective."

William stepped closer.

"The Inspector is a wise man," Julia said.

"That he is," William agreed. He cleared his throat to change the subject, to get to the point. "Um…" he reached up and rubbed his brow, "I believe there are not any attendings today, um, over at the morgue…"

 _My God, the man's eyes are gorgeous…_

"No," Julia said in response, wondering where this was going.

"You promised you wouldn't be alone," William stepped intimately close, and his eyes glanced down at her belly.

"Oh," she said, her maternal instincts bringing her had to cover her womb, "You're worried… about the baby."

He nodded.

"William, we said after four-and-a-half months. We're not there yet," she reiterated.

His eyes dropped away, _so much on this topic_ , _**and**_ _she was right_. He sighed.

 _Oh, how he loved to hear that teasing in her voice…_

Through that sly Mona-Lisa smile of hers, Julia said, "But, detective, I do believe I may be of some help…"

"Most definitely, doctor," he jumped to grab the chance, "I could argue that your contributions are often pivotal."

"Well then, I have been persuaded…" she giggled.

William smiled.

"But mind you," her tone grew more serious, "I must be back in time to be at the University by three o'clock for my lecture," she stipulated, and then added coyly, "And I had best have an answer for those eager young students of mine, detective, about when _you_ will be giving them _your_ lecture."

"Very well, doctor," William shifted and offered his arm to go. "I was thinking I would need at least another week to prepare. Though…" he considered, "It seems this case is heating up. Perhaps we should say in two weeks?"

"That would be lovely," she agreed, "Maybe, we… um, _you_ , will even be able to use evidence from this case," she suggested.

He chuckled, "Yes, if all goes well, perhaps _WE_ will," he gave her a bow, winsomely, winsomely as ever.

) (

It wasn't really until they stepped down from the police carriage and William patted his favorite horse, Sonny, on the neck, and he noticed the steamy puffs rushing out of the horse's flaring nostrils into the chilled March-morning air, that he realized that keeping so many exotic animals healthy in the wintertime would be a challenge. _He wondered how they kept them warm enough._

The man at the Riverdale Zoo gate had let them in, and now the gatekeeper led them down the path between cage after cage of animals. William's answer came quickly as he spotted potbellied stoves within tiny cages inside some of the animal enclosures. Also, many of the cages were boarded up on some or all of their sides to block the wind and keep in the heat. Others, such as the cage with the wolves in it, had small shelters within them available to the animals.

They had asked to speak with Dr. Mole. The gatekeeper was unsure where to find her, so he led them through much of the zoo as he searched. Of course, William would take the opportunity to investigate. "Are there any specific qualifications required to work here. Um, well obviously Dr. Mole is trained. But what of the others?" he asked.

The Inspector stopped at one of the animal cages, reaching out to catch the doctor's elbow. "Oh look, doctor," he exclaimed. Murdoch and the gatekeeper stopped as well.

The gatekeeper answered the detective's question, "Many of the men who work here are untrained... Actually, most are inmates from the Don Jail…"

"Oh yes," William answered, remembering that he already knew that from back when he worked with the zoo to protect the Pink Panther Diamond while it was on display here.

The Inspector was speaking baby talk to the capuchin monkeys in the cage. "You're a cheeky monkey, aren't you?" he cajoled one of the small monkeys who was putting great effort into reaching its fingers through the bars to try to touch him.

The gatekeeper had gone on, elaborating on qualifications of those who worked at the zoo. "Most of the prisoners are only in for minor crimes like vagrancy, but some who possess more needed skills may have done more. Anyone with medical training… And a really big one is carpentry – animals come in here faster than cages can be built for them. They even need bookkeepers…" the man had said.

For his part, William had only been partially listening, for his mind had been drawn backwards into a string of memories stirred-up by seeing the Inspector with the little monkey. " _Athena,' that was the monkey's name, that ridiculous little monkey in that poofy, pink skirt, running free all over the stationhouse. The monkey was part of the circus. It had 'taken a shine' to the Inspector…"_ William's mind had gone into much detail as they stood there watching the Inspector become enchanted all over again with a similar monkey. _The monkey's tiny little fingermark had been left on the knife Julia found inside the stomach of the dead man, Jake the Magician – the same knife that had been used to kill Count Leoline while the overly-hairy man was sleeping in the cell next to the one with the Magician and the other circus performers in it._ But then William's mind had changed track, _**from case to heart**_ , and he remembered _Lady Minerva, the Gypsy fortuneteller, and her cards, and being told what he already knew and what it was that he most feared, and with such a flame in his heart he reheard the gypsy's fateful words –_ _ **"You love a woman. She's your match in every way. And… Oh dear… She doesn't appear to be in your future…"**_

Julia's voice drew him out of his thoughts.

"Have you worked here long… Mr…?" she asked their guide.

"Mr. Rankin, mam… uh, sorry, ' _doctor_ ' I mean, mam," he stammered his reply. His eyes stayed too long on her face, for he found the woman to be incredibly beautiful.

Julia felt the impact of his gaze and felt a warm blush rush to her cheeks. There was a sideways glance in William's direction. "Mr. Rankin," she said, "have you been employed by the zoo for a long time?"

The man kneaded and squeezed and mutilated his poor cap in his hands as he replied, "Oh yes. I started here when I was an inmate, but they kept me on after my time was done. I've been here since the beginning. I was one of the men who worked on the landfill they built the whole place on…" He had an idea, his face lighting up, and he turned them all back, "Look, there's a part of history right in here," he said gesturing for them to look on the floor inside the monkey's cage. "See there," he pointed, "That big divot in the cement…"

"Yes," Julia replied. The Inspector and William nodded.

"That's where one of our hippos laid down when the cement was still wet, back when the zoo was first being constructed."

"Oh my," Julia declared…

" _A bit too enthusiastically_ ," in William's opinion. Impatience in his voice, he pressed, "Dr. Mole…" he reminded, "We're looking for Dr. Mole, Mr. Rankin," and he pinched his lips together, stopping himself from saying more.

As the group resumed their walking, Julia tucked her elbow into William's and leaned close, whispering, "Oh yes, the perky, bouncy brunette veterinarian here at the Riverdale Zoo, the woman that Angelique Guillaume was so enthralled with, the one who would "turn all the men's heads…"

And she giggled with William's scornful frown.

Back to the case, and intentionally steering clear of directly asking about the dart gun, William continued his questioning of the gatekeeper, "I see there are many dangerous animals in the zoo. What means do you have here to handle an escaped or otherwise out-of-control animal?"

Mr. Rankin explained that the veterinarian had a special tranquilizing gun she used to shoot into the animals from a safe distance. "Dr. Mole is an incredible woman," he elaborated, "You'll see," he added with a widening of the eyes as he looked at the Inspector. "Besides overseeing the care of all the different animals here, handling things like suturing up injuries, and lots of births, she's the expert on what they should eat, and what kinds of cages they need and stuff like that," he went on, "And you're right Detective Murdoch, it is really dangerous. People get hurt here at the zoo all the time. About a month ago even Dr. Mole got hurt, got herself quite a shiner, and one of the inmates helping her had really bad injuries too – broken nose, ribs. He ended up in the infirmary for nearly a week, I think…" Rankin paused, fearing he'd gotten off track. _"Oh yeah,"_ he thought to himself, _"the detective asked about 'out-of-control' animals…"_

"You know," the gatekeeper added, "I dare say, she's a really good shot too. Dr. Mole hit a buffalo, a mother water buffalo, with the Tranq, and put her down from at least fifty yards last week. The animal went crazy on some poor guy who went in to help free her calf from the water-trough the dang thing went and got itself pinned behind."

"Impressive," William said. _Oh, how he wanted to ask WHERE this "Tranq" was…_ Instead, he stared at the Inspector and nudged.

The Inspector started, "Uh, this tranquilizer gun, Mr. Rankin, 'the Tranq,' do you know where Dr. Mol…"

But the Inspector never finished his sentence, because right then they all saw it at the exact same moment. Two people up ahead at a juncture in the path, one of whom was very clearly this famous Dr. Mole, for she – _and THIS woman was most definitely a SHE!_ – she was in the midst of giving rather passionate and specific instructions to the man standing with her up ahead. What stood out, besides the fact that Dr. Elizabeth Mole was an outstandingly curvaceous, and jiggly, and round and ample woman in all the right places, was what it was that the female veterinarian was wearing – a very, VERY, tight, black-rubber suit. And she was absolutely, dripping, wet.

"How is she not freezing?" Julia asked, as they picked up the pace, and the gatekeeper called ahead to Dr. Mole. Her jealousy already riled, she said to herself, " _I guess those huge flippers on her feet keep the cold from the ground out at least,_ " with an air of sarcasm at the outrageousness of the sight, and a bit deeper inside her mind she remembered the day she told William _she would wear her trousers_ , and the memory echoed of _herself hopping across their bedroom to him, a land-dwelling dolphin, a mermaid,_ and her hand wrapped around her pregnant belly, and she felt suddenly way too much like a whale.

" _Elizabeth_ " Julia had noticed the Inspector _and her husband_ had both used the woman's Christian name in greeting the shapely woman…

The three of them standing there in front of this extremely attractive, dripping-wet woman, in a skintight rubber suit, Julia was keenly alert to body language. The man Dr. Mole had been talking with before they had arrived had already taken his leave, as well as Mr. Rankin. _Elizabeth_ explained to them, "The wet suit is for working with our water mammals. One of the sea lions – she needed stitching-up, and it turns out she was too unsteady with the blood loss and being under the influence of the tranquilizer – got herself into trouble under the ice…"

"How very brave of you," the Inspector said, all starry-eyed, and impressed.

Julia watched William's face doggedly to see if his eyes would drop down to take in a better look at the voluptuous woman in front of them. _Certainly, the Inspector's had, and his eyes had not yet come back up, either,_ she noticed.

William had been _prepared, alerted to the danger ahead of time_ – in his mind replaying the memory of years ago _when Julia had been so devastatingly, collapsed into a sobbing-mess, upset by his_ STUPID, STUPID _ogling of a seductive and flirty waitress, back the first time Julia had been pregnant with William Jr_. As if his head and eyes were made of stone, William looked into the woman's face… " _ONLY, ONLY her face_ ," his inner-voice warned.

The flash fired inside of Julia's head, of remembering _William FAILING, deliciously and utterly failing, to keep his eyes off of HER naked body, right after she had saved George's life with the shovel, suddenly finding herself completely naked as William and the Inspector had unexpectedly showed up at the nudist colony_. Oh, how she glowingly gleed that William had managed to avoid looking at _this_ woman right here and now, _but he couldn't, he just couldn't, keep his eyes off of HER back then, no matter how briefly he had faltered in restraining his wanting._

The greetings shared, Dr. Mole requested that they head to her offices so that she could get a towel and get someplace warm, and the group headed off.

Dr. Ogden had been right, the veterinarian gave them the tranquillizer gun without hesitation. Even though _Elizabeth_ had seemed uneasy about the initial request for the gun, asking why the Constabulary was so interested in it. The Inspector had covered up well, thus Dr. Mole had not been alerted to their true suspicions, Inspector Brackenreid claiming that they had recently learned of its existence from a newspaper article and that they wanted to keep the details of the tranquilizer gun on file in case it ever turned up as being stolen from the zoo in the future. The implication that it could be used as a weapon loomed unspoken in the room. Dr. Ogden promised to get it back to Dr. Mole as soon as possible, knowing it was necessary to have it on hand here at the zoo for any emergencies with the animals that might come up.

Julia got William off to the side to tell him about the tranquilizer gun. "On first glance, detective, it looks like this " _Tranq_ ," as they call it, could definitely be our weapon. The needle used in the dart is the right width and length. I'll need to test the drug once I get it back to the morgue," she informed. "Did you notice where she keeps it?" Julia asked, glancing over at the everyday cabinet where the tranquilizer gun was stored.

"Yes doctor," William nodded, and then added, "I suppose they don't want it locked up in case someone needs to get to it quickly…"

"Yes," Julia gave, "That makes sense."

William frowned and then reached up to rub his forehead, "But of course, anyone could have taken it."

"Unfortunately, yes," she agreed.

Wise, Julia would push to find more clues. She returned to ask _Elizabeth_ , "Dr. Mole, I'm quite intrigued," she flattered, "Could you show me around? Do you perform surgeries here?"

"I'd be honored Dr. Ogden. Your reputation as a brilliant doctor, yourself, proceeds you. It is quite good to have other women making such a big mark on the world besides just myself…"

 _And Julia fought off the urge to find the woman overly arrogant_ , telling herself that, _as a woman in today's world, Dr. Elizabeth Mole had accomplished much and thus she had every right to be proud of it._

Dr. Mole began her tour as she explained further, "I only perform surgeries rarely, when they are direly needed. There are some doctors, like yourself, who come in to help with more elaborate surgeries, sometimes. And we had…"

The woman's sudden halt in her speaking tingled the hairs on the back of William's neck. _Whatever she was about to say, there had been high emotion there, possible deception hidden by the hesitation, the startled need for deletion._ He listened intently, and _Julia Ogden truly amazed him, for so subtly, she pushed…_

"You had someone special?" she asked nonchalantly.

"No," came the quick answer, "Um, not special, just lucky for us, I guess. There have been occasions, uh… when an inmate from the jail has the training…"

"Oh, I see," Julia waited for more.

William and the Inspector, in the background pretended not to be that interested.

"There is no one… no one right now, though, I'm afraid. It's all up to me," Dr. Mole said with an air of regret. Her face became cheery, "Perhaps you would be interested, Dr. Ogden?" she asked the other woman in the room. She enticed, "Some of the surgeries are quite interesting. Our resident pelican had over half of its beak bitten off at the wolf enclosure…" Dr. Mole frowned as she added as a side-note, "It was an ill-advised visit. Honestly, putting a pelican in with wolves…" and she rolled her eyes before she went on…

And Julia remembered that _William had come home from his work protecting Inspector Guillaume's fancy diamond while it was on display at the zoo, telling her about how struck he had been by this veterinarian's concern for the animals in her care, specifically about how strongly she had protested when Thurston Howell, the 1_ _st_ _and Alderman Lamb had requested that she dye a female lion pink for the big to-do with the Pink Panther Diamond._

Dr. Mole finished up her surgery story, "We grafted a duck's bill to the remaining pelican bill using horsehair. It was brilliant," she marveled, "He was able to eat… well, diced fish, anyway. He's still here, doing fine. Anyway, I could sure use the help, doctor…?"

"Oh, I would," Julia replied. And inside her head she rambled on a bit about _how interesting it really would be to work on such cases…_ "Unfortunately, I have so little time," she answered. Looking over to William she said, "We have a young son…"

William nodded, and smiled, and ever so briefly, Julia's heart unexpectedly skipped a beat.

She went on, "And I teach at the University, besides my work as a pathologist for the Constabulary, and… I'm pregnant again," she added, her hand covering her belly, "Oh, and William… um, Detective Murdoch, uh, my husband… I'm sure you know we're married…"

Everyone in the room looked at William, who charmingly said, "Happily," and gave his wife a winsome bow.

It was subtle, but then Dr. Elizabeth Mole ogled her way down the detective's body, surging William's face into a panicked, pleading look in his wife's direction. _Way too slowly_ , the female veterinarian lifted her eyes back up and said, "Yes, Toronto's Favorite Couple. You are both in the papers quite often."

Eyes back to Julia, and as she fought the urge to either roll her eyes, or laugh, or punch the woman in the nose, she said, "Yes. Well we, uh, that of course can be both good and bad… um being in the newspapers all the time, so…" Infused now with anger and jealousy, and suddenly wobbly, thrown off-kilter, Julia forced herself to _take a breath… and remember what it was she had been saying…_ "And yes, in the middle of all that, William and I are planning on writing a book together, and I… You see," then giving Dr. Mole the wrinkled-corner-of-the-mouth look, Julia concluded, "Despite how fascinating some of these surgeries may be, I just don't think I have the time."

"The zoo's loss, doctor," Dr. Mole concluded.

William stepped forward, next to his wife, closer now to Elizabeth Mole, who glanced into his eyes, and noticed, again, how handsome this remarkable _other woman's_ husband was. The veterinarian tucked some of her wet hair deeper into the big fluffy towel draped around her shoulders and patted at it working it dry. "Was there something else detective?" she asked.

"Our son," he turned to catch Julia's eye, "He is uh…" William chuckled, "He's enamored with zoo animals. We were wondering… Are there any shops, where perhaps we could purchase a souvenir, maybe some little toy animals?"

Elizabeth Mole smiled. "I believe I can help with that. I'll call someone to take you there and let you in. It's closed this time of year, but please consider it our treat."

"How delightful," Julia declared.

The tour of the surgery complete, a man came to accompany them to the zoo shop. As they took their leave, Julia promised Dr. Mole to have the tranquilizer gun sent back to the zoo by the end of the day.

)

Heading down yet another path within the zoo, William held Julia back behind the Inspector and their latest tour guide. He wanted a chance to say what was on his mind. She sensed his pent-up energy. "What is it, William?" she asked.

"Too many coincidences," he answered with the wrinkled, doubtful face. "I know the Inspector wants me to stay away from asking about Alderman Lamb…"

Julia chuckled, " _Of course he would go there_ ," she giggled to herself in her head. An inhale, reminding herself to be kind, and she said simply, "Yes. I'd say he made that quite clear."

For his part, up ahead, the Inspector was thinking to himself that his suspicions were falling on the pretty lady. _She was the one with the weapon, and the know-how to use it_. A string of pretty women villains ran through the Inspector's mind, _half of which the buttoned-down Detective Murdoch had been too taken-with to see them for the criminals they really were._ " _Sally Pendrick, now that was a big one, Murdoch completely duped into going after the woman's husband when it had been the sultry wife all along. Oh, and Eva Pearce…"_ The slightest blush ran over the Inspector's face as he remembered the good doctor, now Murdoch's wife, back then teasing himself and Murdoch so mercilessly about their both being taken-in by Eva Pearce's charms – _"Miss Pearce is a classic manipulator. She uses provocative, distracting gestures. Her smile. The smoothing of her dress. Her choked tears. Cleverly portraying herself as the victim, holding you in her gaze. That's how she disarmed you. Looking at you like you are someone she wants to remember. As though you are special to her…"_ An embarrassed rush hit him as he thought to himself that _it wasn't only Murdoch, he himself had been taken-in._ Thomas remembered how out of control he had felt with opera diva, Madame Rosa Hamilton, _outright flirting with her and trying to hide it from Margaret the whole time_ … _"Oh bloody hell! Even with Annie Oakley – well at least SHE didn't do it in the end."_ He sighed, and his thoughts drifted back to Murdoch's foibles, remembering that there was _also that beautiful Egyptian lady-doctor archaeologist Murdoch fell for, too – It was God who got that one in the end, stealing the Holy Grail, struck her with lightening…_ _"Yeah,"_ he thought, _"it was probably the pretty lady."_

William leaned closer to his wife and explained, his voice low, "It's not actually ' _Alderman'_ Lamb…"

"Oh…?" her mind raced to other Lambs…

"It's more his son," William gave, " _Malcolm_ Lamb."

She turned to look into his eyes as they walked along, and in the recesses of her mind _she saw William's pencil sketch in the margin of the newspaper again, of what was meant to be, what should have been,_ _ **the two of them walking together**_ _,_ _ **just like this**_ _, but William had been missing her, and in the drawing, he had found himself alone._ She looked down onto the path, and she saw their two long shadows stretched out before them together with the sunlight still low like this, for it was still morning, and it was wintertime, _"Almost spring,"_ she reminded herself, _the equinox just around the corner, she and her students would have another trip to the Body Farm for their seasonal-effects on buried bodies study…_ And all that happened inside her head in just that mere glance into his eyes, and then she clarified, "The detective at Stationhouse 4 before you? That Malcolm Lamb…?" and her mind so quickly flashed down the same track as William's had – _Malcolm Lamb had been the killer on that intriguing case when William had sent her the pieces of the three chopped-up victims that were dumped near the Don River while she was in Buffalo – the body pieces that all had been in that one, same, cement block..._

William leaned even closer, their pace slowing to a near stop, and he whispered, "Malcolm Lamb is doing twenty years at the Don Jail. And they use inmates here at the Riverdale Zoo, to construct the cages. Lamb is good at carpentry…"

"He was a former policeman, William?" she countered, "What makes you think…"

William interrupted, anticipating her question, "It was the piece of evidence that clinched Lamb's confession for me at the time, a small square of wood that Lamb had used as one of the sides on one of the wooden boxes he had made to hold the pieces of the bodies in cement with while the cement set. The wood had made a specific knot-pattern mark in the cement, and it matched perfectly with a square of wood that Malcolm Lamb had in his carpentry shop. He had used it to make birdhouses. Julia…" Now he stopped her, turned her to face him head on…

 _Oh, how his eyes danced and twinkled_ , and she felt the cherished chill tingle through her whole body, _not love necessarily, not mere excitement, just a somehow_ perfect _vibration surging down alighting her very core…_

"Julia – Malcolm Lamb chopped those bodies up with an axe. He is an inmate at the Don Jail, with carpentry experience, and inmates from the Don Jail with carpentry experience work here at this zoo, THIS ZOO, which is exactly where the weapon that killed our chopped-up-with-an-axe victim is located. He has means and opportunity…" William argued his case.

"Easy tiger," Julia used the Inspector's same words from earlier to add weight to her warning, "We are not sure, yet, that this gun _IS_ the weapon…" She saw William reach up and rub his brow…

"True," he said.

She went on, "And you have no proof that Malcolm Lamb was ever even here at the zoo, only that he _could_ have been," she paused waiting for his nod. He gave it.

William's mind rushed ahead. "There would need to be an axe…" his mouth said, his eyes suddenly perusing the area as if he would just see it there, waiting for him. Meanwhile, his brain raced down multiple paths, " _I'll need to see work rosters, probably at the prison… There would have been a lot of blood… Where would he have hidden the body before he chopped it up, or after it was chopped-up? How did he get it out of here? To our Body Farm? Why would he be so stupid as to dump it there?! He would have known I'd make the connection… I wonder if I should question Lamb? Not until I've got him…_ " And it was that last thought that did it – that stopped him. _Julia was right. He was going too fast_. He resumed their walking, his arm tucked into hers. His heavy sigh spoke his frustration.

She waited at his side.

"I do believe I'll need that warrant," he said.

"It will be easier to convince a judge to write one once we can prove this was the weapon, hmm?" her tone was reassuring, grounding him when he needed it.

" _The woman is perfect, just like Lady Minerva's cards had said all those years ago,"_ William thought to himself inside his head, " _absolutely my match in every way_."

)

Once the three of them were alone inside the zoo shop, the Inspector shared what he had learned from the man waiting for them outside while they each considered the various toys and souvenirs for William Jr. "Murdoch. Doctor," his voice hinted at having something important, "I took the opportunity to ask our escort a few questions. It turns out that the lovely Dr. Mole is married…"

"Oh!" Julia instantly regretted revealing in her gasp how happy she was about that newly revealed fact.

"Yes, I am aware of that," William said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Julia's head turn to gaze at him. William kept his attention down of the toys, considering a toybox painted with zoo animals, zebras, elephants, giraffes… _"It's a bit too big to take back with us,"_ he reasoned.

The inspector lifted a box of tiny toy zoo-animals up into the air for inspection. "The little tyke'd love all these different little animals!" he enthused.

Looking to the Inspector's suggested toys, Julia said, "Too small. He could choke on the tiny pieces. He still puts everything in his mouth…"

"Of course," The Inspector replied, putting the box back down, "It's been a while for me… a toddler."

Julia smiled, warm, authentic. The shared warmth of being a parent passed, and she casually asked her husband, "So, detective, how did you know Dr. Mole was married? Did she tell you herself, or perhaps you had reason to ask her?"

 _Both men felt the heat rising in the room._

Blowing pressurized air out through his pursed lips, William replied, "She told me back when she was working with the lion, the one she had to dye pink to make it like a Pink Panther."

Then, getting back to the case, _safer ground_ , and what his instincts drove him to do anyway, William asked, "Is the veterinarian's being married relevant, sir?"

"Well Murdoch," he said, confident and strong, in a way that it got their attention, William and Julia each stopping their shopping to turn to him, "I think I've got most of it worked out for you. Mr. Mole worked as a guard at the Don Jail and has been missing for a few weeks. Now, according to what our Dr. Mole reported, he just up and left her one night to go back to his first love, back wherever it was that Mr. Mole originally came from. The worker outside gave me a description of Dr. Mole's husband, described Mr. Mole as a big man, and a mean man…" The Inspector's face reddened as the pace of his words rushed, "A bloody bully, cruel to inmates, cruel to his wife. Bollocks, I hate a man who hits his wife!" the Inspector's teeth gritted tight. He took a breath. He went on, "It seems Elizbeth Mole often had injuries, and even though she always claimed they were caused by the animals here, the word among the workers is that the bloody animal that hurt her was her husband."

"So, sir," Murdoch checked, "You think Mr. Mole is our victim, our second one anyway…"

Julia jumped in, "It fits, William. Our victim was big, and he had the boxer's fracture, remember. He would have been the type of man… He punched… people. And the timing of his going missing matches, our victim was killed about a month ago. Perhaps she simply had had more than she could take…"

William went on, "So, Elizabeth Mole used the tranquilizer gun to kill her…"

"Abominable husband!" the Inspector charged, "Yes, Murdoch. We have the victim, and we have the murderer, and the murderer has both means and opportunity, and now we would have motive too."

William sighed. _Facts were facts_. "We will need much more…" Inside, his doubt began registering in his gut. It made him wince.

"William…?" Julia asked.

Murdoch rubbed his brow – _he was getting one of THOSE headaches._ "Let's check the weapon, and I'll have to bring her in for questioning, I suppose…" A puzzled look covered his face, wrinkling it into doubt, "We need more…" he concluded, nodding his head to himself, "before I interrogate her." He was trying to convince himself, but he felt regret, he felt conflicted, for his lines of inquiry were narrowing, and he was working to give up on his ' _hunch,_ ' as Crabtree called it. William told himself to stick to the evidence, take the next logical step. _So now it turned out that he did NOT need to go to the jail and check to see if Malcolm Lamb worked at the zoo about a month ago after all... But still, he needed the axe – they still didn't have the scene of the crime…_ "If the weapon matches, sir… matches the wound and the curare-drug, then we'll need that warrant Inspector," he added.

" _Bloody well gonna tick Alderman Lamb off_ ," Thomas forewarned himself. _"Bloody Murdoch!"_ With a labored sigh, the Inspector agreed, "Get as much as you can, Murdoch, before we take it to a judge. I think Judge Rafferty has had some qualms with the alderman. We'll try him."

Julia reassured them that she would be able to analyze the chemicals in the drugs in the tranquilizer gun relatively quickly once she was back in the morgue, that would be a good start if it was a match as they suspected.

William had a thought, remembering that _his most recent 'hunch,' the one about the victim being the missing worker from Davies Slaughterhouse, had been wrong, too_. William's teeth gritted tight, _he hated this feeling, pitted insecurity… absolutely hated it._ He said to the Inspector, "And we need to look into Mr. Mole's whereabouts, see if he can be found."

The search for a toy for William Jr. resumed at a quicker pace, for there was much to do now. Julia found it almost immediately – four simple wood carvings in a sack, an elephant, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, and a tiger – no paint, the details done with the carver's knife, whittled into the little figurines, their eyes, their mouths, even the tiger's stripes. The detail was impressive. William wondered to himself, off on the side, if _maybe it had been Malcolm Lamb who had made them_.

As Murdoch stayed back, insisting on paying for the toys, the Inspector and the doctor walked ahead alone together to the police carriage. Julia found herself once again staring down at the shadows gliding along out ahead of them on the path.

"So, doctor," the Inspector's tone that fatherly one he got with her sometimes, "Did he pass the test… our man?"

" _ **Test,**_ ' Inspector?" she asked.

Inspector Brackenreid continued on, "Bloody hard test if you ask me, given the woman, and the circumstances. But if there's a man in the world who could pass it, it would be your husband…"

And now Julia knew that the 'test' the Inspector was asking her about was about how well, or not, William had done when confronted with the very attractive, skin-tight rubber wet-suited, dripping-wet, gorgeous and very sexy, Dr. Elizabeth Mole.

"I'm only glad Margaret wasn't there," he blew out pressure, then added, "Bloody hell, I am glad about that," he admitted, shaking his head with even just the thought of the aftermath he would have had to face. Still, he found that _the whole thing reminded him of the time that himself and Murdoch had come upon the good and lovely doctor here, naked, au naturel, quite voluptuous herself…_ And he felt the oddest twinge of _secret, delicious guilt hit him_ with the next memory, this one of _Murdoch finding his sketch of the nude Dr. Ogden, Murdoch's wife, the drawing sketched from his haunting memory of seeing her LIKE THAT, left in among his other artworks in his portfolio that he and Murdoch were collecting after he had been an undercover artist for a case. The sketch had been from that unforgettable, lingering moment when she had turned to be caught, so gorgeous, and remarkably strong, despite all those womanly curves, in that endless moment when they had appeared, unexpected, half-a-second after the woman had saved Crabtree's life with nothing more than surprise and a shovel. It had captured him, the mesmerizing beauty of the woman's contradictions, so much so that he had had to draw it to try to get it out of his head._ The Inspector turned and caught the doctor's eye, "Bet Murdoch looked when it was _YOU_ , though, heh doctor?" he said.

Her reaction struck Thomas as wise, this rare woman who was Murdoch's wife, and his Constabulary's coroner, and who annoyingly defied society's convention over and over again, and, in so doing, spiced up the world around her, Dr. Julia Ogden smiled.

Tucking her arm into the Inspector's and resuming their walking along, feeling his sideways stare, knowing he saw her happiness despite her best efforts to hide it, Julia answered simply, "He passed both tests, Inspector."

" _Both_ tests?" the Inspector raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. And then her meaning hit him, and he smiled, "I see, doctor. I see." And it seemed, for a moment, that such happiness was delightfully contagious.

) (

The Inspector and Dr. Ogden took the police carriage back to the stationhouse, while Detective Murdoch remained behind. The case against Dr. Mole required more evidence, and he had much to investigate in the area. To ensure that Murdoch did not get overeager and muck up any dealings with Alderman Lamb, who, besides owning the zoo, was quite influential at the Don Jail, the Inspector insisted that he, himself, would be the one to take care of investigating the missing husband's work records as a guard at the prison.

William called a cab and asked the driver if he knew where the veterinarian – Dr. Mole lived. He did, and the driver took him there. With the driver waiting at the front of the house to take him to the train afterwards, William searched for evidence.

There was a wood-chopping block and some firewood. _No axe to be found._ Also, importantly, there was no evidence of blood on the block, or any he could see in the snow, even after digging down to deeper levels. The evidence suggested that the body, possibly that of Elizabeth Mole's missing husband, was not chopped-up into pieces here. William sighed, for as he let his eyes peruse the whole scene, the evidence, that someone had been looking for evidence, was far and wide. He had left quite a few of his own footprints in the snow, and you could tell someone had been digging around in the snow around the chopping block – " _enough that it was noticeable_ ," he thought. "It had been unavoidable," he decided, and he figured he could at least mask his theories, and what it was that he had been specifically searching for, by making more of a mess, all over the area. It was in the process of making 'more of a mess,' that he came upon a place where a pit had been used to burn something. Based on the amount of snowfall over the ashes, he determined it could have been from as long ago as a month that whatever it was that had been burned here had been destroyed.

Access to the house was possible, on the sly, through a window in the kitchen in the back, and William decided to bend the rules. He used a long board he had seen near the woodpile to use as a ramp up to the window ledge, thus hiding his own footprints up to and out of the window. If he did it right, no one would be able to tell he had gone into the house. Inside he found that there were a few items of men's clothing in the home, enough to appear that there had been a man – a relatively large man, living in the house, who could have taken most of his things and moved out, supporting Elizabeth's story.

Next, William questioned a neighbor who said that the Mole's had a horse and a wagon, but it had been gone since about a month ago, back when "Nick left that pretty wife of his." It was reported that Nicholas and Elizabeth Mole fought a lot, and the neighbor described Nick Mole much as everyone else had, as a brute. He had said of Nicholas Mole that he had not been sorry to see the backside of the man, and the neighbor didn't figure that Mole's wife had been either, although from what the neighbor had seen, Elizabeth Mole had not taken on any lovers since her husband had left her.

On the train ride back home, William found himself wondering about why he felt so reluctant to think Elizabeth had done it. " _Perhaps you're being fooled by her beauty,_ " he wondered of himself. He tried to imagine what could have happened, _the brute husband showing up at the zoo. Elizabeth not ready to go. Nicholas Mole getting outraged and accusing her of having a secret lover. Hitting her – giving her the blackeye the gatekeeper spoke of. Then she would have gotten the tranquilizer gun, followed him outside, his back to her, she would have shot him in the back of the knee with the dart._ There, his train-of-thought stalled however, and he sighed, for try as he might, William had trouble picturing Elizabeth Mole chopping-up her husband's body with an axe. He tried to push through it, " _But, if she did, whether she shot her husband with the dart at the zoo or had taken the tranquilizer gun back to their home, wherever she chopped-up the body, there would have been an axe and blood. There was no such evidence at her home…_ It niggled – _that it was odd to have a chopping-block and a woodpile, but not to have an axe. Perhaps she had disposed of it?_ " He sighed again. He would have to ask her about it when he interrogated her. He jotted it down in his little book.

)

Returning to the stationhouse late, William found Julia's report on his desk. With it, she had left the sack of William Jr.'s carved zoo-animals and a note. She had already left for her class at the University. She would be late for dinner. The tranquillizer gun and the chemical in the darts was a match for their weapon. William wrinkled a corner of his mouth at himself, " _Why didn't finally getting a break in this case make him happy?"_

The Inspector had seen him come in and knocked at his door. "Murdoch," he greeted, "Our suspected victim, Nicholas Mole, had been a guard at the Don Jail for five years. The last day he showed up at work was February 17th. I spoke to the warden there myself, and, no surprise, Mole had a history of being violent. The other guards helped to tamper him down, the warden said. The warden reported that it was Mole's _wife_ who was the one who had informed them that he had left town. That was the next day."

The Inspector shifted, stepping deeper into Murdoch's office. Suspecting Murdoch was reluctant to accept Elizabeth Mole as the murderer, giving the detective the next piece of information promised to rile him. " _I need a scotch_ ," his mind tried to avoid it. " _Bloody Murdoch! This'll only slow him down more, half the speed of molasses!"_ his brain complained. "Murdoch," he alerted, "This whole story, it's all from Elizabeth, so it could be just more malarkey to cover her tracks…"

"Sir," William frowned. He anticipated a disagreement.

He would just get it over with, already knowing the detective would want to go there himself, drag the whole thing out. "The warden said that Dr. Mole reported that her husband had left the area to return to his hometown – Sudbury," he said. It was this next part, " _blasted woman was smart_ ," he yelled at himself inside his head, _"covering the bases."_ The Inspector sighed and added, "There was a contact, a phone call to the warden, requesting Nicholas Mole's records be sent to Sudbury Jail…" He glared into Murdoch's eyes, seeing the man's brain jumping, "But Murdoch, it was just a cover-up, it could easily have been done, just a phone call. I had Crabtree check it out. Sudbury Jail's got no record of Mr. Mole applying there, not a month ago, not ever. And there's no Nicholas Mole working there now either."

William conceded, "I see." His brain started to consider, _"Sudbury is far off…"_

"She's smart Murdoch," he pushed, "You know that."

William blew the pressure out of his lungs and rubbed his brow, accepting. He told the Inspector about what he had found at Elizabeth Mole's home, and they argued about whether or not to try to get the warrant to search the zoo _**before or after**_ William interrogated her. The inspector finally yielded, seeing the logic to Murdoch's point that if they called her in for questioning _before_ they had had a chance to conduct a search, it would alert her that she was a suspect, and she might get rid of whatever evidence they might find at the zoo if the body had been stored and chopped-up there. This was the first time William had noted it, wondered about it – " _it had appeared to be too cold at the zoo for flies._ _Yes, in the offices in surgery it was warm enough, but not out in the animal enclosures. And there had been no evidence of any flies in the offices and surgery. Where would the body have been in order to have gotten the maggots…?"_ his brain puzzled, and his headache flared.

The twist occurred to him as he remembered a similar, but in some ways, reverse, case. His eyes drifted over to the curtain closed in front of his back room, where he had kept the Junebug pupae in the rotting liver. " _Opposite problem, that one_ ," he thought, " _There, the body had had to be kept COLD somewhere."_ That had been the clue that had gotten him to the icehouse. He frowned at his 'hunch,' his hunch that this clue about the temperature and the flies, seemed to be important. But then William Murdoch's mind had gone off track, and, as often was the case, the thing that had had enough force to pull William Murdoch's mind from a case, was Julia Ogden. _Back then she had complained so about the stench in his walls,_ he giggled to himself. And he smiled, because he had impressed her, with his unique ways, and his tenacity, back in that backroom. His eyes wandered over to the sack of toys on his desk, proof that they were husband and wife, proof they had had a child together. _"Who could have known?_ " he thought.

Suddenly aware that he had gotten lost in thought, the Inspector's voice registering, the detective's eyes darted up. "Sir," he wrinkled a corner of his mouth, "Sorry sir."

"You'll prepare what I need to take to the judge?" the Inspector asked as much as ordered.

"Yes. Yes, sir," he quickly agreed, "That'll be good. Thank you, sir."

Heading for the door, the Inspector said, "I'll deal with the bellowing phone calls from Alderman Lamb." "I need a scotch," he mumbled as he left.

) (

Julia brushed her hair at the vanity up in their bedroom, dressed in only her robe after her shower. William was closing up the house for the night. _"It was a good day,"_ she thought. There had been a break in this troubling, troubling case. " _And William Jr. loved his toy zoo animals,_ " she chuckled to herself, " _Well, except for the tiger. He wanted to banish the tiger."_ Julia's mind drifted, firing up the image of Dr. Elizabeth Mole standing in front of them today at the zoo, looking so sexually enticing. Her womb tweaked, _"Mmm, yes, definitely_ ," she thought breathy and lusty, there was a bit of a wanting looming there. " _William Murdoch had passed the 'test,_ " she thought gleefully, _"He deserves a prize for that."_

She sighed.

She went back to brushing her hair. _Back to the University class_ , _her students were excited for William's lecture in two weeks. Her lecture this afternoon had gone very well, preparing them for their third trip to the Body Farm, for the data collection for the Spring-season portion of their study…_

William's footsteps up the stairs. " _He'd check in on the baby first..."_ Devilish the thought blazed _,_ " _Oh, he is so mercilessly about to be seduced_ ," she told herself in the mirror.

She remembered that William was still wearing his vest and his tie, just before the door had opened. Her mind zinged the images before her, _luscious, frantic, wildly sexy images…_

"Juli.." he couldn't even finish his surprise, for she had already captured him.

Her fingers around his tie. The door pushed closed. His body _… centrifugal motion_ , the breath stolen from his lungs with the whiplashing sonic boom of the unexpected and sudden change of direction, she flipped him. _Bam_ , her back against the solid wood of the door. _Wham_ , the tug of his tie pulling his body into hers. " _She had no clothes on!"_ his brain finally screamed it. His nostrils flared, the fast, hot steam dizzying him. "Julia," he tried again, only to have his lips devoured by her kissing, and his red blood rushed to thunderbolt his groin. And he felt himself, _not his idea_ , press against her _mushy, mushy body_ , pinning her to the door underneath him. _My God, he wanted her._

Instincts took over, _**uniquely Murdochian instincts**_ , to fight his lust. " _Pull back. Pull back_ ," his brain ordered. " _My tie – she's untying the knot!"_ the warning, the electrifying deliciousness of the warning, flared. _"Think of something else. The case! The case!"_ the advice came.

William pushed himself back, his lips, a hesitation – _they wanted to stay, they wanted to stay,_ his lips free. He would speak. _He would speak – words. "What words William? What words…?"_

So out of breath. Both of them puffing, chests heaving, lifting, sinking, so fast, the throbbing, stuck in the gravity of the push and pull.

" _Oh. Oh, the collar's unbuttoned... Lower, lower buttons, the vest. How can she do this this fast…?"_ William's lustful wooziness threatened from the margins.

A swallow, so dry, "Do you think, doctor…" _He somehow had done it – he had found the words!_

 _Oh, he wouldn't dare_ , Julia's eyes narrowed accepting the challenge.

"Do you think the way they kept the animals…" William barely said, before Julia scratched her fingers into his hair, and pinched clumps of the short, black, strands of it tight within her grip, and pulled him down into her, and she drown him in a hungry, sucking, moving, moaning, juicy kiss.

William planted his palms, _solid, hard_ , finding the door behind her. _"Push back,"_ his orders came.

He pulled out of their kiss. Had to clear his throat, still, "Um, with the potbellied stoves, and the wooden walls for wind-barriers…" he tried to finish his question, the one about the case. Deviously, he avoided her mouth as it reached for his, ducked his face down to tuck it into her neck, rageful now, his impulses, " _Mmm, she smells so good_ ," he fought against the lure, _"Words, William_ …"

"Do you think, doctor," his voice muffled into the tunnel of her flesh, "that it was warm enough for flies…"

Julia nearly giggled with the delicious sudden stopping of his speaking.

 _Pants, she's undoing my pants_ …

He reached for her mouth, he kissed her. _My God, the way he kissed her._ And Julia's knees weakened so severely she had to hold onto him to not to drop down to the floor.

Then he broke it off. His breath flooded over her in gush after gush, _hot, so hot_. "Remember our victim…" he scratched out, "He had maggots…"

Julia slipped her hands inside his now-unbuttoned shirt, felt the smooth pure skin of him.

And William's breath caught…

 _She was going to… her naked, succulent body, she was going to…_

William's moan betrayed him, _heartily_ , as Julia pressed her flesh into his. Squishy and soft, at the front of him, and she firmly dug her fingers into his muscly back, and she wiggled and molded all that womanly lusciousness all over him, pouring and crushing herself all over him, covering him, _smooshing him_ _everywhere, everywhere_ , and she tilted just right, to find it, his eagerness, hard, so very, very hard, and very, much, more, than, ready.

"William," she wasn't sure if her gasp was in her head or out in the room, right before she kissed him.

Trying again, William broke off the kiss. He felt it, the savageness so close. " _Malcolm Lamb!"_ his brain hurried the name forward, the thought, the string of thoughts associated with the name, so tenuous. _Go, William – say the words… "_ Malcolm Lamb…" his brain trumpeted with the accomplishment, so slight, the shift back towards control. But then, the thought that sounded somewhere out there in the room lacked connection, as he asked her, "Why do you think we didn't see the more exotic animals? There should have been elephants, lions, hippos… and what about that baby hippo? And he worried that, despite his best efforts, his brain had turned to a wonderful, lustful soup.

Julia played her best card then, her fingers slipped down into his opened pants, and he was gone, he was just gone.

William Henry Murdoch lost all control. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he would take it, beastly and jungle-wild and greedy, he flipped her around to plaster her scrumptious, mushy, bosoms _hard_ into the door, and centered himself, low, admiring those two round, succulently plump buttocks. He took her then, Julia's moan, primal and desperate, rapturously only adding fuel to the fire. Grumbly, his voice told in her ear, "Woman, you make me gloriously glad to be alive, every day, it's you. You drive me crazy." And William's mouth, warm, wet, a tingling sharpness with the nip of his teeth, took her earlobe in, sucking and squeezing, releasing, erupting, every drop of want for him inside of her, wrenching and wringing her insides so tight with needing him that it ached her to the bone with helplessness. "Please, William," she heard herself beg. And he began that perfect, perfect rhythm, such that this man thoroughly rocked her world.

"William," she gasped.

Striving so hard to get closer, and closer, and closer, every inch of him stretching with all his might to touch that one perfect spot so that they would both implode, covering her, covering every inch of this deliciously sweet, sweet, woman with his pulsating, throbbing, ramming, pounding heat, and he heard that _**little… weak… whimper**_ … so desperate, _she was so desperate,_ for him to touch her so perfectly, fill her so completely, that every molecule vibrated with want for his touch, demanding every morsel, every drop of him, that that little tiny whimpering sound, _so defenseless, such aching in it_ , that it pushed them over the edge, and the whole world flipped over and the wave loomed huge, soaring above them, boundless below them, unstoppable, the rumble before the crash, so magnificent they wouldn't be able to withstand it, the scrumptiousness flowed through them, gooey, and melty, ripple after ripple so good it hurt, and the only thing to be done to survive it was to wish it would never, never… never… end.

Breathless, exhausted, thoroughly spent behind her, thoroughly covering her, dizzy with the fuzzy edges, _no edges_ , he pressed heavy against her. His heart pounded so inside his chest he wondered if it touched to hers. Out of breath, his voice dry, he told her, "I feel like my heart might explode…"

And, feeling the ferocious beating of it forging into her back, she marveled at its, at their, synchronous drumming, and she whispered, breathless and warm, "Your heart is strong, William."

"It's yours," he swore, lush and humid breath flooding, pouring over her, rapidous and assured, like the tide rolling up on the shore, "My heart is yours, Julia. It's always been yours."

 _Rolling, rocking, splashing,_ the rushing of the gentleness of the all the salty water in the world broke against the rigid walls of her world, _and she loved him so much it collapsed her_ , and he said to her, "Until all the stars go out, my heart is yours," and the tempo of their recovering from such a strenuous bout of merged euphoria changed, for there was a shaking with the strain, and Julia Ogden began to cry.

"Hey, hey there, now," he whispered as he turned her to face him, and he shushed her, so tender, in her ear. "Shh. Shh. I'm right here. I'll always be here. Shh. Shh. Inside, all around you, all through you. I'm yours… Shh. I love you. Shh. Shh. I'm always yours," laying down over her, over her troubled, quivering, soul, stilling her troubled waters, he held her, held her for as long as it would take. Then William reached down and took hold of the backs of her thighs and lifted her legs up around his waist, stepped out of his trousers pooled down on the floor, and he carried her over to the bed in his arms. He laid her down with him, laid his body down over her, stroking her, loving her.

Eventually, she whispered to him that she was better, and he rolled them over to rest her head down on his chest, and he teased her then, saying, "It seems you ambushed me, Mrs. Murdoch."

"It seems you quite liked it, Mr. Murdoch," she retorted.

"That I did," he gave, with a kiss to her head, "That I did."

Then he turned off his lamp and the dark of nighttime surrounded them there together. Amazing, how quickly, how deeply, the deliciousness of sleep came.

 _And dreams get longer, more elaborate, the deeper you fall._

)

 **It felt so comfortable, so familiar, being up in the front of the lecture hall, all those eager students' eyes on him. Strange, that he remembered them as being male faces, young men, in the seats, instead of all these pretty young women. That is, it was all men,** _ **except for Julia**_ **, when she had come in, and their eyes met across the vast space, him down by the blackboard, her up in the rafters, and his heart broke, because they were apart, and then he remembered that that was a memory not a dream, and he gloried in his heart, because it was true, back then, back when he had lectured Robert Perry into confessing and turning on James Gillies, back then they had been parted, but now, now they were together, and they were married, and maybe it was because it wasn't his first time actually doing it, that it felt so safe up here giving this lecture.**

 **Back then his lecture had been on physics, the equation and forces involved in hanging a man. Now his lecture was on the forensic use of marks, fingermarks, footprints, cut marks from an axe, all sorts of marks. He was telling the class about using ultraviolet photography to find old bruises that would otherwise remain hidden from view. On the blackboard he drew the bruise that had been on the first Body Dumper's victim's thigh. All of these lady students oohed and ahhed, for they had been at the Body Farm themselves that day – they had discovered the man's body. The chalk flat against the board, he'd drawn a somewhat central circle, and then four fat ovals extending out of it.**

 **Suddenly he was struck by it, by how much it resembled a handprint, "but too big, and the fingermarks weren't long enough to be from fingers…" But then all of a sudden, he saw it happen in his mind, a giant monkey slapping the victim's thigh to make the mark, to make the bruise. His heart jolted with a panic, for it seemed so real. "It was an animal!" suddenly he was telling the Inspector, "The bruise is from an animal, not a machine as had thought," and that little monkey, Athena, was sitting on Brackenreid's lap, in that frilly little dress, and she had the knife with her own wrong-sized fingermark on it in her hand, but then he remembered, that that was a memory too, and right now, right now, he was lecturing Julia's University class.**

" **It was an animal!" he turned to the class declaring. "It was an animal! Didn't you see it… at the zoo?" he asked them, and then, that's where they all were, at the zoo, the lecture hall somehow gone now.**

 **He hadn't noticed that Julia wasn't there, and he continued with his lecture, getting back to the point about using marks as clues. He stood in front of the blackboard, now in the center of the Riverdale zoo, and he found he was much enjoying the banter, the play, with the students. It was so much fun, the sexuality of their flirting with him just barely visible under the surface. It only intensified the thrill, his keeping their amorous attentions at bay by managing not to respond directly to their seductions.**

 **From a side door, he heard it up in the rafters, resounding through the lecture hall, Julia's stern voice bellowed out, "William Henry Murdoch."**

 **The room responded with gasps, heads turning in the direction of the source. Whispers and exclamations rippled across the wind…**

 _ **It's Dr. Ogden."**_

" _ **She's angry…"**_

" _ **She agreed to let him teach us, didn't she?"**_

 **William stood, 'deer-in-the-trainlights,' as Julia marched to the front of the room, marveling in, thrilled by, the way she moved when she was mad – her chin jutted out and high, defiant, confident and challenging, her arms pumping erratically, and laterally, left swings, then right swings, creating a float, reminding of one being on cross-country skis in the pure, white, frozen snow.**

 **Her huff, the moment she stood before him, her eyes magnificently on fire, her face aglow…**

" _ **She is so beautiful, stunning… this woman**_ **," the thought in his head tried to register, to make sense with where he knew they were, with all those amorous students watching them, as if on a stage. And in that moment,** _ **he felt his mouth hanging opened**_ **, felt her warm breath blow over his face…**

 **Her huff seemed to draw him out of his trance. "Julia," he said it, his tone revealing his surprise, his confusion. He watched a change flow over her, faint, but most assuredly there. She softened.**

 **As she felt her love for this man flare and surge in her heart, her anger seemed to switch. Still present, still unbearably driving her to act, she sensed the trigger of it behind her, all those infatuated feminine eyes watching them. Every atom in her body shifted its magnetic pole, turning towards the students.**

 **But… when she turned to face them, steam escaping, seeming to** _ **hiss**_ **with the suddenness of her turn, their young faces –** _ **so much like hers had been at that age**_ **, admiring her, adoring her, wanting to** _ **BE**_ **like her. And she felt her love for them under the jealousy and fear and the pain and anger. And it, too, warmed her from within, and softened her harsh stance.**

 **Julia paused there to let the ground settle… breathed before she spoke, "My dear and esteemed students, I feel I must point something out. As you have surely noticed, William Murdoch is a brilliant man…"**

 **As a whole, the class seemed to exhale relief. There were abundant nods.**

" **As a matter of fact, I have never known someone brighter," she added, briefly turning her head to catch his eye. "But, in matters of the heart, in matters of human connection, in receiving and sending messages sent on a more subtle level… messages with the eyes, with the posture… he lacks the skills sometimes," Julia stopped momentarily, thinking of changing the train of thought. "** _ **More direct, I think**_ **," William heard Julia's inner voice coach her, but her voice's sounds were inside** _ **his**_ **head.**

" **William Murdoch is a good-looking man…" Julia stated the facts.**

 **So quickly, every female head in the room took to quick nods of agreement, and William Murdoch's eyes dilated so wonderfully, and he blushed.**

 **Julia fought the urge to giggle, her current insecurity – so unfamiliar, strangely odd and disgusting to her – fizzing away when touched by the flame of the love she had for this particular man here, who she loved so profoundly, temporarily amazed once more that it could flutter deep inside of her so that it completely caught her off guard at times.** _ **How did William know this, know Julia's thoughts,**_ **the oddity sparkled, but from too far off to keep his attention?**

" **Let's face it," she went on, "He's gorgeous, really. He's an EXTREMELY attractive man. And what you cannot see…" And with that, Julia's eyes toured and perused their way down William's body.**

 **And he could feel all the eyes in the lecture hall doing the very same thing to him.**

 **Julia made the most silent sound of appreciation, a sort of, "** _ **Mmm**_ **," before she went on, "Yes, what you cannot see is magnificent as well, believe me."**

 _ **Oh, they did.**_

"… **And I am certain that many of you fantasize about being** _ **with**_ **him, for you are human, and healthy." Her focus turned back to the young students. "And I, as his wife, I am fully aware that he, too, may have noticed how attractive each of you is. He may even have had flashes of fantasies about being with you as well. But, to be honest, I doubt it. And that's what you should know. William Murdoch may likely not even notice that attraction. And if he does, I promise you, it is more likely to make him feel uncomfortable than aroused. And…"** _ **with this track, with this thought, William thought, William knew that Julia felt the floor under her lift, and a tiny spin in the room dizzied her a bit, for where her mind had gone was somehow so crushingly powerful, potent, and the truth of it made her giddy with a warm joy.**_

 **She swallowed, for her throat had gone dry, and William saw her eyes watering with tears, and she took a piece of her efforts to cease the building of the wave of it, to hold the emotions back. Julia took a breath and said, "You should know that HE LOVES ME," she announced finally. "He will not act on your advances, I assure you," her eyes dropped down to the floor.** _ **She had an urge and she was fighting it,**_ **William somehow just knew.**

 **But then, however, and to loud gasps in the room, Julia Ogden lost that fight.**

 **She spun, suddenly dressed in that extremely sexy, red-leather, low cut, cleavage-revealing, bodice, and that short,** _ **very short, up to her ears short**_ **, scandalous skirt… He recognized it, his fear only adding to the tumult thoroughly souping his brain, it was the outfit she wore in that dream when she questioned him about Mrs. Jones –** _ **questioned him with a truncheon**_ **– all those many, many, years ago. She approached, jumped into William's arms, plastered him backwards with a** _ **'thud'**_ **as his back hit the wall, hit the blackboard, behind them, and she planted a huge kiss on him – right there, in front of the whole class.**

 **The students responded with only total, enthralled, silence, eyes wide, soaking it in, most of them longing for it to be them up there in place of their professor.**

 **Julia broke off the kiss, which she had felt William succumb to, soften to, open to, and she reveled in the way his lips had bent and molded under hers, and then his lips stretched to hold their connection as she pulled away, to the point that his balance wobbled as he tilted, following her departure, eyes still closed, wishing she would stay.**

 **Her eyes on him, keeping stuck to his, but her voice seemed to wrap around her body and address the class behind her instead of him…** _ **"Perhaps it was a ricochet – off of the blackboard,"**_ **a part of William thought… somewhere? And Julia said, "William Murdoch is mine. Not because I won him years ago, but because HE IS IN LOVE WITH ME…"**

 **And his eyes darkened as they reached for her, and tenderly, gently, he nodded.**

" **He's in love with me** _ **NOW**_ **. I promise you, I'M THE ONE FOR HIM, and he knows it. And that's why I say, he's mine." Julia's blue, magnetic eyes dropped to his lips, noticed, once more, that they were full, and lovely, and she wanted them so, to feel them move and yield, to taste, to be inundated by his scent... "His lips are mine," she said, her voice still loud, but now mistier, right before she placed her lips on his.**

 **William's response to her now was more familiar, less rigid, and he knew, her insides tweaked with want, by the way she arched her back, and because he heard her make that little weak sound, like a secret – that desperate squeak.**

 **She broke off their kiss, her lips still close, lingering. Quieter, the class straining with all their might to hear, she said, "His jaw is mine. It's prickly stubble, in the morning, is mine." And her lips kissed his chiseled jaw, and she breathed in his smell so deeply, and her soft, soft lips traveled a beeline to his ear. And she said, her voice tumbling down into him, stirring him, igniting him, "His ears are mine."**

 **And he felt the eruption shoot to his groin, as her nibbles and her kisses and her breaths filled him.**

 **Pulling back again, she continued her list of possessions, "Those eyes, those scrumptiously warm, chocolate, melty eyes, their twinkles and sparkles… those are mine," she watched his long dark lashes close downward as she leaned close to him, so close to him, to kiss next to an eye, and then turned her face to feel his lashes, their butterfly-soft quiver – tickle, as he re-opened them, against her cheek.**

 **He just about buckled at the knees with the loss of oxygen as he felt her fingers find and pinch opened the button at the top of his suit vest. So quickly her hands were gliding up and down the curves of his chest through merely the fabric of his shirt. She stopped over his nipple, and it reached for her, growing hard and firm under her fingers, and she pinched it, and his breath caught, and it was the last moment he thought it… "** _ **Everyone would see**_ **."**

" **His chest is mine,"** _ **her words seemed so close and so far away, inside and outside**_ **, and her explorations suddenly switched from, what was now is bare chest –** _ **the unreasonable loss of his shirt, weird, but barely noticed**_ **, to his bare arms. "His strong, muscly arms are mine,"** _ **and he felt the fall beginning, feeling it was so high, so mountainously, mountainously, high.**_

 **And then she leaned into him… down lower, she touched him, she found him.**

 _ **Oh, what a bolt! He was magnificently alert.**_

 **William swallowed.**

 **Her voice whispered, screaming it to the class, "This is mine," her tone changing to one of warning as she pressed her body into him, repeating, "** _ **THIS**_ **is mine, William."**

 **Densely, he asked, his voice scratchy with the pressure and the pleasure of it all, "This?"**

" **Yes this," her voice sang into him, and she rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed over him, on him, and what he desired, what he lusted so hard for, what he wanted so badly that it seemed to threaten his very life, what he ached for so deliciously, was so very, very close. Her voice raspy told, "This is mine, in our marital bed, in our standing bath, under the rain of the shower, against the wall, on the desk or the foyer table, even bent over the bathroom countertop."**

 **Then, just as he imagined, as he considered, spinning her around into the wall, ripping off his trousers, lifting her thighs up around him, taking her, taking what he wanted…**

 **The lights thundered with a roaring '** _ **click,'**_ **and the blinding luminescence filled the lecture hall. And suddenly Julia was halfway across the room. And all the female students!** _ **Oh my God**_ **, all the female students were wearing skintight, black, rubber suits. And he could see every curve of them, breasts – big, and round, and bouncy, and that succulent slope inwards to their small waists, and then that sweeping outward curve to those wide, wide hips.** _ **Oh my, his world rumbled**_ **.**

 **Abruptly, the chorus line of them jumped and jiggled and then turned, so that he could see their backsides hugged tight in the rubber. His eyes were drawn downward to the rounded curving of their buttocks tucking inward to form a deep, sumptuous crevice.** _ **And, OH, how he wanted to be there – right there.**_ **Altogether, each of the beautiful women spread their legs and then seductively, enticingly, slowly, bent forward, as he watched, and the world seemed to twirl and spiral. His eyes stuck on the rear-end of the closest woman… and then,** _ **he saw it!**_ **And it plummeted him, what he imagined he would do, feeling himself THERE, his hands ruggedly traveling the plump, contours of the woman, up her ribcage through the rubber of the skintight suit, squeezing her, locking her in place under him, and he wanted so, so, badly to take this woman…**

 _ **AND IT WAS IF HE COULD HEAR IT**_ **, the teardrops that were pooled so shimmeringy large in Julia's beautiful blue eyes, as they dropped and cascaded down her cheek and plopped into the puddle at her feet.**

 **And he looked at her and his heart broke, for he had strayed again, like he had done with the waitress back when she was pregnant with William Jr. And he had hurt her. And the only reason he didn't crumble up and die right there was because he had to fix it. His eyes filled with tears and he wished, he wished with all his might, that he could take her hurt away.**

" **Julia! Julia please," he begged and he wept and he cried, "Please! Please!"**

And she nudged and kissed him to wake. And she pulled him over into her arms, there in their bed, safe and together, and she told him it was alright, and she loved him, and she knew he loved her, and it was alright. "It was just a dream, William. You were having a dream. You're alright. Shh. Shh," Julia's voice, the voice he heard in his soul, promised him that everything was alright.

His racing heart slowed, his head tucked down into her bosom, so sweetly she caressed him, soothed him. And William recovered enough to dare to look backwards into the dream, and it poured in, _him giving the lecture, Julia jealous,_ and then… And the high-pitched hum in his ears just before he remembered the shift, the switch, its arrival secretly revealed in the loss of the ability to breathe – _**the black rubber suits! The wanting! And Julia crying! Julia crying…**_

Shame, guilt, too wretched to be loved like this by her, William suddenly rolled away, rushed to throw the covers away, sat up on his side of the bed, hoping distance would hide him, and darkness, and that upright gravity would lighten the load. But he felt… _disgusting_ … and _dizzy,_ sick, _so sick_ and nauseous…

He felt her, the waves of shifting balance underneath him as she moved the mattress behind him, her beautiful voice calling his name… The muscles at the tops of his thighs twitched – _almost,_ almost, he ran away.

He felt her stop, _not next to him yet_ , still behind him. _She was waiting. She's so wonderful, and I don't deserve her, I don't._ William tried to push them away, but those memories of him ogling the waitress, of the aftermath of him desiring the waitress, those images in his head, _they would not stay down_ , and a part of him knew _he deserved the pain, and so he looked_ , in his mind, back to seeing _the woman he loved so much he would die for her, Julia, his precious, precious Julia, sobbing so hard with absorbing the hit of what he had done to her, pregnant with his child, and he had coveted another, and it had hurt her so badly she fell to the floor with the pain, and she cried and cried so hard that she made herself sick, and she rushed into the bathroom and vomited in the toilet, and they sat together on the floor, and he tried to stop her from heaving , and shaking, and crying… And he wasn't sure he could survive hurting her like that again._

 _But she was waiting, behind him._

And he felt it, _deeper than the pain_ , warm in his heart, _it was a part of him now_ , and he took a deep breath, _because he trusted her, trusted himself, trusted their love. And with that trust came truth, and so he needed to tell her._

She heard, she saw his back, his naked skin and his defined muscles lustrous in the subtle white glowing from the moon through the window, William took a deep breath. He was ready now.

The solemnness in his voice called to her, as William said, "It was like the dream with Eva Pearce…" he needed to push to finish, "I was seduced by the suspect – sort of, um," he blew out he pressure, "same… um, same… clothing."

And Julia knew _it was Elizabeth Mole, and the rubber suit from today at the zoo,_ that William had dreamed of.

William's mind rushed so fast, judging, correcting – _actually it hadn't been Elizabeth, it was Julia's students. But the rubber suit, it WAS the rubber suit… suits._ But closer to the surface, he was remembering telling her about his dream with Eva Pearce _in her office at the asylum, lying down on her couch_. _He had been ashamed then too…_

William's voice in the room, "When I told you about the dream, with Eva Pearce, you asked directly if I had desired her, and I told you then, the truth, that I had, that I had desired her, and it didn't hurt you. But then, when it was…" he still found it hard to say the words, "when I desired the waitress… "

"Yes," she whispered, heavy, soaked with remembering the pain.

"And I saw you so hurt. I had hurt you so badly, I think it was more than you could bare. Julia, I don't think I've ever felt so awful, ever. Not Constance Gardiner," he shook his head, "not…" he swallowed, "not…" Unable to fight the tears, he yielded to them, and they could be heard in his voice, heightening the tone, slippery and damp, deepening the resonance, "And now I… I have…"

"William," Julia swam, rippling the mattress, to sit herself next to him. "William, listen to me," he heard her voice, so close to him, and in her words, he heard her tears, too. She took his face in her hands and turned him to her.

Only dim pure moonlight, he saw her, _so beautiful_ … He made himself nod. He needed to swallow down the upsurge.

She spoke from the heart, and it touched straight into his, and before she even began, the healing had begun. "I did feel hurt, when you told me that you desired Eva Pearce in your dream. I did, but I managed to stay professional. And…" she shifted, took a deep breath.

He felt her fingers, so delicate, touching him so perfectly, a little bit, into his hair, so soft across the outer edges of his ears.

Julia sniffled and found the words, "And I loved you so much, even by then, before we married," she smiled, "before I loved you this much," her voice had become just a squeaky whisper. She nodded her head, agreeing with herself and went on, "Before I loved you so much that at times it destroys me," she wrinkled her face at him in the dimness, "I love you so much, William…"

"Julia…"

"And it does hurt. I won't deny that. But I know that you love me in a way that is special in the world. I do," he felt her eyes tug at his. She chuckled and dropped her chin down, dropped her eyes away. "I want you to remember… it was terrible when it happened, but now, now I think… um," Julia sat up straighter, suddenly more sure, stronger, and said, "Remember Neil Catfrey, William…"

And he did with a searing pain in his gut…

"We both are human, hmm?" she asked him. She chuckled again, rolled her eyes, "You're just a better human, I think. But we can't wholly avoid our subconscious William. If nothing else, it will get you in your dreams." And she pinched her lips into a smile, and she won him there, she won him then, he mirrored her smile, and pulled her close, into a hug, and he cherished her, and she cherished him, and the storm had passed, and they were alright, and they were together, and together they were alright.

) (

Claire-Marie stared after him.

William Murdoch took his leave from the downstairs playroom, having completed laying out their parental instructions with the nanny for the night, tonight another big night out for the couple.

She had not been able to keep her eyes off of him, _AGAIN_. Eloise warned her ,all the time, not to gawk at the gorgeous detective – her employer, _she wanted to smack herself in the head, "your employer, Claire-Marie!"_ she scolded herself.Tonight, the man was dressed in a tuxedo, " _now that is downright irresistible – Ooh la la, monsieur…"_

William tugged at his cufflinks as he rounded the corner of their staircase. _Julia should be ready by now._ He sighed. _He hated these big toff-gala things_. He sighed again. _He didn't want to be too early, that was awful, harder to hide, he guessed that was it. But too late, and somehow all the eyes seemed to turn,_ and William reminded himself that _at functions like this one they have that nauseating tradition of announcing you so publicly –_ _"Presenting Detective William Murdoch and his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden,"_ he heard the booming voice echo inside his head. And all of a sudden it hit him, behind his discomfort, underneath his uneasiness with trying to be one of them when he was not, surprise, surprise, he was puffed-up proud to be married to her. " _Huh,"_ he shook his head and chuckled to himself.

William hovered for a second in the doorway, just that brief second, she hadn't spotted him standing there yet. _Julia Ogden looked stunning_. He let his eyes travel down her body, and _the curves of her tempted and swayed_ under his eyes, and the warning, _strong, and manly, and formidably rigid_ , jolted inside of his tuxedo trousers, suddenly making them feel much too tight. He stepped in.

"We've talked about this particular dress, Mrs. Murdoch, have we not?" _his eyes danc_ ed so, as he teased her.

She saw the look of him, it made her own voice breathy. "We have, Mr. Murdoch. I thought it might not fit... Um, well, I thought, perhaps, it'd be too tight," she giggled, and wiggled, _and jiggled - so sexy_ , and said, "It seems my current state only enhances the bosom, and it looks even more…"

He stepped close – _**too, too, close**_.

"There is only one thing that dress makes me want to do, Julia…" _his voice was way too warm, the breeze of it in her ear,_ "And that is to take it _**off**_ of you. And if I don't do that right now…" William leaned closer, _electromagnetic, the force,_ "It is _**the only thing**_ I'll be able to think about all night," he confided, uncommonly cocky for William Henry Murdoch.

William's fingers took themselves a curl.

 _And Julia felt the stupendous pull, the floor wobbling up so fast, flipping her womb over inside of her, as his eyes dropped down to her breasts, and she felt them heaving up and down underneath the weight of that look._

"Easy tiger," she gasped, _wanting him to lose control so much it buckled her, wanting him to release that tiger, set all that secret wildness loose on her…_

She cleared her throat, seeking strength, "It took over an hour to get ready for this party, mister, and we'll be lat…"

He kissed her, _**oh, and she melted,**_ so deliciously with the heat of him. _His fingers in her hair, his silky-smooth tongue, "there was not enough air, not enough air," his body, "Mmmm, his strong, strong body," so hard against hers…_

Breaking-off the earthshattering kiss, "My hair," she cried out, her last attempt at resistance.

He held his gorgeous eyes to hers, and his jaw was so… _tight_ , _and he looked so GOOD_ …

And it crashed, wild and lusty and uncontrollably fierce.

His lips took hers, wiggling and squishing and pushing into hers, so amazingly soft and warm. Such a jolting panic, " _He's unbuttoning his trousers…_ _His tuxedo_ ," a small swirling strip of her brain remembered they were supposed to be going to her charity function, " _His pants – down on the floor_." She helped, found the grommets of her dress, rushed to unfasten them for him. His hands – _ALL OVER HER…_

)

Detective William Murdoch thoroughly romanced his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden, before they went to her fancy toff charity function, by then, the tiger back in its cage, his wife wearing a different dress than the one she had first put on, all the ballroom's eyes turning to see them together – _Toronto's Favorite Couple,_ when the announcement of the arrival of "Detective William Murdoch and his wife, Dr. Julia Ogden," had rung out through the big, elaborate, marble hall – it seems the Murdoch's _were a bit late_ , for the big to-do. ( ;

)) ((

William Jr. had wanted to banish the toy tiger, the one of the little zoo toys that could not be trusted. His parents had had a talk with him about it, though. They thought the moment held within it a teachable lesson, for they hoped that their little son would understand that it is tiger nature to hide, to stalk, to hunt, to kill. That such instincts are not evil, that they are necessary for the tiger to survive. And that every being is intrinsically valuable, and that all of us are interconnected to the others in our world, that we cannot live a full and meaningful life without impacting others, and without having them impact upon us as well. It's like the jagged rock tumbling in the stream, it's the bumping, and the knocking against others, that makes us well-rounded. It is only in this way that we find our true balance in our world, that we become wise. They reminded him of the bedtime story that unfolded up on his ceiling that night, and they coaxed him to remember what the guardian angel had said, that you can learn your most important lessons from the tiger, for the tiger reveals to you what it is that you value the most.

The expression, "easy tiger," is used when we want someone to calm down, not to get over-emotional, or not to rush into something. It does give one the feeling, though, that something big, and wild, and dangerous, and important, is just around the corner. I wonder if, perhaps, it might be the tiger?

)) ((


	22. 22: Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tale

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 22: Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tale

He had excused himself from the small huddle of men sipping their brandy and smoking their cigars, Dr. Isaac Tash's associates, off to the side of the big marble ballroom. Truth be told, William was grateful to Julia's friend, Julia's doctor, the man who had teamed up with her to convince him to risk having this second child rather than take the route he had preferred and have her have an abortion instead, for it had been Isaac who had stepped forward tonight, right away, after he and Julia were announced to this function – unfashionably late, to help him to feel more comfortable at one of Julia's bigger charity affairs of the year. " _Yes,_ " he thought in his head, to the world, as he made his way through the extravagant gala hall full of posh tuxedos and colorful ballgowns, " _I do see the irony. ME, a devoted Catholic man, and a police detective, trying to insist that JULIA have an abortion, after I broke off our relationship BECAUSE she had had one in the past, believing it to be unacceptable for a woman I loved, a woman I would marry, to have committed such a sin and broken the law. And now, now I find I am grateful to the man I nearly jailed years ago for performing that same immoral and illegal act, not only for helping to bring my children into the world, but for being willing to save Julia's life, if I had asked him to, by performing an abortion on her, and even further, it is HE who comes forward as my FRIEND, helping me, a lowly Catholic police detective, fit in at a an overly-lavish party for the rich and powerful of Toronto._ "

William spied Julia over on the other side of the dancefloor, engaged in polite discussion with two couples. A waiter approached, Julia put her empty glass down on his tray, then excused herself from the group. He imagined her saying she was going to find her husband. That was what he had said to the men as he had parted just now, that he was going to look for his wife. He saw her stop, standing alone. He waited for her eyes to find him among all the others. But instead, she became absorbed in watching the couples on the dancefloor, and he saw her face change, and he couldn't help himself, he fell in love with her all over again. _She was so incredibly beautiful. She was his wife, that beautiful, smart, fiery woman across the room, HIS._

Her eyes followed a pair who were gliding and turning all around the dancefloor. The couple reminded her, a bit anyway, of herself and William that first time, when they were dancing together at the Dinosaur Ball. Perhaps it was the woman's blue dress, or their harmonious movements, faster, more vivid somehow, than the rest. And there was bright conversation between them. " _Not quite as mesmerized with each other as we had been,_ " she considered, " _but still – keenly attuned to each other."_ She wondered _if it had been as easy to tell that she and William had been in love…_

"Do you want to dance?" William's voice came from behind her, pulling her out of her thoughts. He stepped closer, and she turned her face just a little to the right, leaning backwards to him.

"Perhaps," she answered.

Her husband stepped closer, shifting the tilt, the gravity, in the room. _Magnetic_ , the attraction between these two, invisible, forceful, always racing the breath, stealing the oxygen, dizzying the brain. Strange, how she could be in two places at once, falling, as she felt him, _tingling and electric_ , behind her, heard him, his shadow, _his ghost at her periphery,_ at her edges, she smelled him, she sensed him tipping his face closer to her hair and taking the scent of her in, and at the same time, wobbling, with the disbelief that _William Murdoch_ would actually be so bold in public. A flash in her mind played, of _him coming up behind her while she stood cooking at the stove on Saturday mornings,_ and it brought a smile to her face. _She always, absolutely, joyed when he did that… did this_. She was torn between gasping and smiling when she felt him take a curl of her hair in in his fingers. The intimacy, the physical closeness, the twinge of sexuality, from him, _from William Henry Murdoch, while they were in public – and at such a stuffy occasion,_ so unexpected that it genuinely caught her off-guard.

His voice in her ear…

" _My God, butterflies too_ …!" she marveled at her reaction to this man…

"You seem quite taken with the dancers," he wondered.

Julia succumbed to her desire to touch him, reaching her fingers up to slide them tenderly across his face, his manly jaw, up and over his ear, up into his black, black hair. The gesture reminded him of when the two of them had _'experimented' with smoking opium, and she had become enthralled with a tapestry of a dragon, and he had come up behind her to be stroked in just the same, delicious, way, while she marveled at the artwork. She had noticed the oddity of its five claws – matching them to the five claws etched on the dragon on the killer's opium pipe, once again amazing him by finding the essential clue needed to solve the case._

Julia confided, "I was remembering…"

"Mm," his grumbling in her ear, _his breath on her…_

It took her a moment, _trying not to drop_ , as his hand snuck in around her waist. She continued, "Us together, the first time we danced…"

And so quickly, William felt the _tiny jolt of panic_ as he remembered _losing his balance, that first time the dance instructor surprised him, surprised them, by partnering them together, and he tripped so clumsily, he had been so nervous, and he stopped his fall by grabbing hold of Julia's magnificent derriere – so embarrassed he could die…_

"… at the Dinosaur Ball," she had gone on, _meaning a different 'first time_ ,' "I had been so excited, William, giddy even, when you got up the nerve to ask me to go. And the way we were together, thrilling with it all, you and I, sailing, and soaring and floating as we danced. Well worth the lessons…"

Behind her, fighting the carnally insatiable urge to plant his face into her creamy, delectable neck and get her supple flesh in his mouth… William's brain flung up a memory. _Julia had defended herself against that rabid serial killer – the fiend pretending to be Scotland Yard's Detective Scanlon, really Harlan Orgill, very likely London's terrifying Jack-the-Ripper. She had fought the monster off all by herself, brilliant and brave – then surprising him by appearing for their dance lesson that night, flooring him with her strength, and with her need – for HIM, to have HIM hold her in his arms, and rock and sway and soothe her after the awful ordeal…_

William nibbled hat her ear, sending a chill through her whole body, just before he whispered her name…

"Julia…"

And she was astounded, truly astounded, that HE, would behave this way – HERE, that he was able to relax like this. She interrupted him, asked him, "William Murdoch, have you forgotten where we are…?" Expecting that her merely asking the question would repel him, but William did not pull back, he did not tense up, or suddenly worry. He stayed, he leaned in closer, his body, his delightful, delightful body, pressing firmly up against hers.

"Julia," he ignored her question, "Remember the first time you showed up to dance. I thoroughly did not expect to see you there…"

And Julia's mind raced to the time, _seeing him waiting across the ballroom, gorgeous, the man was outstandingly gorgeous, anxiously tugging at his tuxedo as she approached him, in her red velvet dress – the one she'd put on just for him. The most important night, the night she would tell him that she had left Darcy, that she loved HIM…_ And Julia felt she was holding her breath as she remembered the magically romantic moment, now, in this ballroom, here, _HIM_ the one defying convention and snuggling behind her, her mind replayed the night that _SHE_ took the leap, chose her love and happiness over being acceptable in the eyes of society, _the whole world shifting under her feet, because William told her, that fairytale night, that he loved her still, that he had never stopped loving her, that he would love her forever, that she was the one for him, and he kissed her and the fireworks flared and popped and blazed in the sky…_ But, she heard him go on with his memory, here and now, and she realized _he meant much longer ago than that…_ William Murdoch's brain 'exacting,' he meant the very 'first time,' _when she had showed up late for their dance lesson together, after Scanlon had almost killed her, because she wanted to be in his arms,_ she remembered it so viscerally – that _the only place, in the whole wide world, where she wanted to be, was in his arms…_ And she listened to him tell…

"I expressed my surprise to see you there, after what you had been through, and you told me that _that_ night, more than any night, you would very much like to be held, and I did, I held you in my arms, close and warm, so I drowned in your scent, and you melted into me, and we danced, but it was different, so different because we _danced WITH each other,_ like a life-dance together, Julia, and I knew right then that our life-dance had begun, and… I thanked God for you. It was the first time, I think, that I thanked God for you," William whispered his secrets to her and then he tucked in deeper, and nibbled at her neck, kissed at the outer edges of her ear, before his warm, private breath snuck in to her to ask, "Do you want to go?"

 _So suggestive, so unexpected_ , the way he said it, the heat of his breath rumbling down her bare neck, rolling down the front of her shoulder, smuggling between her breasts, so that it ignited her center, her deepest, deepest insides, with throbbing, untamed wanting for him. She swallowed down the steamy rush of it. "William," her voice raspy and winded, "We barely just got here. The baby will still be up…?"

"A hotel room, then," he said, cocky, _so scrumptiously evocative_ that it was bewildering to her…

 _And, impossible, it was impossible to erupt this much with lusty want_ , her breath caught with a gasp, and she felt him lean heavier into her back, and his lips smiled against her skin. Dangerously, she was tempted. She would fight the falling, tease him. "Some reporter probably just snapped a photo of us like this," she giggled. And then her brain remembered, " _Oh, that would explain it…!"_ the light went off inside her head, " _Isaac took William off somewhere, right after we arrived, and Isaac Tash does like his cognac…"_

She asked him, "William…" and he mumbled his ' _hmm_ ' in her ear, "Did you have a drink… with Isaac?"

"Mm. Smokey dark brandy, they called it. Made me all warm inside?" _his speech_ _slower than usual, deeper in tone than usual…_

And, with a flood of conflicting emotions, Julia realized that _William Murdoch was a bit tipsy._

"Yes," she responded, "Yes, it does that," she peppered the air with a loving chuckle. Her mind rushed back to the night, that wonderful night, their first kiss, their _almost_ on the picnic blanket in the park. " _Absinthe_ ," her brain declared the word, remembering further, William being deliciously _disappointed_ – " _Not one_ g _reen fairy_." And she wondered, for a moment, with a sense of irony, and an odd lack of guilt, _if she might be the only woman in the world who WANTED her husband to drink more alcohol?_ She considered again, the hotel room…

But then she spotted the mayor looking at them. " _And, my God, that's Alderman Lamb gossiping in his ear! The way the mayor glanced over here. They're talking about us_!" Julia's brain blared the alert.

He felt her pull away, stiffen.

"William…!" her eyes stared, focusing, across the room, "Alderman Lamb is here… With the mayor!" And instantly her brain worried, for _the Inspector had warned William to back off! "And William's… Oh my God, William's been drinking!"_

He had found the two men across the other side of the dancefloor, already taken her by the hand. She leaned back against his pull. "William! Wait," she whispered, stopping him.

"William. William," her magnificent blue eyes fired into his, as she clutched ahold of his upper arms, _the man suddenly striking her as so handsome, and so innocent, and her soul wanting to touch him so much she felt an ache_ , she swallowed with the relief that she had stopped him, at least paused him. "William. We have to be smart about this…" she appealed to his reason, "Right?"

He lifted an eyebrow at her.

Julia leaned closer, lowered her voice, "Lamb knows we suspect something. That we've been trying to get a warrant to search the zoo…"

He nodded.

Julia exhaled, big, pressured, as she waited that final second for her panic to quell.

"But we need more Julia," William's eyes twinkled, for he suspected that this was their chance, their chance to get that one needed clue. Impatience won out, and he pulled her forward again.

The greetings were polite.

However then, Julia's nerves getting the best of her, she awkwardly made a joke about Lamb's name. "So, Alderman Lamb, have you ever considered that you were destined by fate to be the founder of a zoo?" she asked the stately man.

William leaned over to warn the two men, "My wife enjoys a bad pun. Consider yourselves forewarned."

Lamb barely managed to contain his scowl. A somewhat nasty, quick pinch of his lips into a smile, he replied to the woman, "And why would I, doctor… Dr. Ogden? Why would fate pick me as a man who should own a zoo?"

Julia rushed her punch line, "It's your name – ' _Lamb,_ ' like an animal, a ' _lamb_ '," she stressed the word, "like a little animal that you might have over at your zoo right now, at this very moment."

"Ah, yes," Lamb replied, unimpressed.

William gloated, "See, I told you…"

A sharp inhale from the mayor, he had had an idea of his own, it turning-out that he wanted to play Dr. Ogden's name-pun game too! He leaned closer to the detective's wife, everything about his body language telling he intended to up the ante. "I can do you one better, Mrs. Murdoch…"

"Oh?" Julia answered, noting to herself that _he had used her husband's name rather than her own_ , and her brain dashed to think of _what his pun could be...?_

"It's your husband's name – Murdoch," the mayor stood up taller. He held back his own chuckle, "You could most certainly say that your husband has a great deal of expertise when it comes to murder, could you not…"

The mayor waited for her to respond.

"Yes," she gave. Her mind raced…

William's mind too, _though it was foggier inside his head then usual…_

Even the mind of the snotty Alderman…

Racing to make a connection, she thought, " _MURDer' and 'MURD'och…"_

"And doctors, like yourself, are experts in their field of study, are they not?" he paused, giving the admittedly, uncommonly well-educated woman, a compliment.

Julia nodded and smiled.

"That they are," William jumped in, gleaming.

Now the mayor chuckled, "So, your husband is like a doctor of murder, then. A MUR – ' _Doc_ ,' as it were," he delivered his line, then heartily slapped Murdoch on the back.

"Oh, that's a good one sir," William gave.

For a moment, the four of them stood, laughing together.

Then William asked, "So Alderman, do you have any ' _lambs'_ at the zoo?"

And then the pleasant atmosphere quickly dwindled, as the mayor said, "Actually detective, the Alderman here has been telling me that you have been quite a pest about his zoo."

"A ' _PEST_?" William questioned, feeling the steam instantly rising up inside of him.

Julia saw it, his efforts, the deep breath, his jaw tightening, William's fists even began to curl down at his sides.

" _William!_ " inside her head the yell came, outside only a tiny gasp, _too late._

"Does your son have access to the zoo, Alderman," William asked, his eyes glaring into the other man's, daring him to blink.

William so homed in on his opponent that he did not notice Julia's eyes bug wide at his boldness, her brain flashing her _the warning, the reminder, the explanation for his lack of self-control, that William was, as unlikely as such a thing was, under the influence of alcohol._

The Alderman held fast to the detective's eyes. "I'll have your badge Murdoch," he gritted his teeth, his face reddening with fury as he curbed the urge to yell. "How dare you!? You have always been out to get Malcolm hung," Alderman Lamb looked over to the mayor…

The mayor took the man's arm in his grasp, "Daniel," he leaned closer, tried to whisper but his heart was pounding too fast, as his eyes glanced about to see if they had drawn attention to themselves yet – and the answer came with a zing, _they had_. "Take it easy," he tried to calm the situation.

Lamb shook free and leaned closer to Murdoch's face. "You weren't satisfied he didn't hang, back when you… you… You're trying to find something to pin on him, Murdoch? I know you went to my zoo, confiscated some tranquilizer thingy Elizabeth needs for the animals. You're trying to get a warrant. You need to knock it off. All he ever did was help… my boy. A good and honorable man, my Malcolm. Did what was right, sought justice for Harriet King. Then suffered the consequences like a man, he did…"

Again, the alderman's eyes glanced to the mayor. "He helps at the zoo, Emerson. Designed, practically built that winter-house himself. The man helps - helps! He even went and got hurt, broken ribs, broken nose, by some crazed wild animal, got himself sent to the infirmary!" Catching Murdoch's pretty wife's eyes briefly, Alderman Lamb looked back to Murdoch, "And all you are interested in doing, detective, is besmirching him, villainizing a good man."

"Winter-house…?" William finally got word in. "The zoo has a winter-house, where it's warm, even in winter?" He shot an excited look to Julia.

"Flies!" he whispered.

And right then it hit her, with a terrified jolt! _William wouldn't want to show his cards here, but he was not quite himself, and it was up to her to_ _ **stop him**_ _, to cover up their discovery, Alderman Lamb just unknowingly dropping that last, essential, final, needed clue…!_

William turned back to Lamb. Leaned into the man and began to speak, "That's the final thing I needed, for the wa…"

Suddenly, out of the blue, _it truly could not have been more unexpected_ , Julia flung her arms around William's neck and she planted a passionate kiss on him. She kissed him long, and she made sure the kiss was enormous, and scandalous, and very, very, sexily, passionate – utterly shocking everyone and reveling in the outrageousness.

The mayor, the alderman, they both gasped…

She kept kissing him until she felt William recover, at least a little bit, from his shock, and then she released his lips, relying on his being too stunned to speak, and yet she heard his dazed voice, dry, scratchy, weak…

"Julia?" he asked her, "What on Ear...?"

She considered kissing him again, but instead found his ear close to her lips. "Trust me," her whisper was so low that he was unsure whether or not she had actually said it, or if he had simply imagined it.

Abruptly she turned to the two men. She swallowed. "Flies, um gentlemen." She smacked her lips together tight. "It seems we must do exactly that," she giggled, and there was a flirtatiousness to it that spoke volumes, "It seems William and I must fly, I'm afraid." She took William's hand. "Sorry," she said, and with a tug, she pulled William towards the exit...

"Julia, what on Earth!?" the whirlwinded detective could be heard asking of his bold and brazen wife as she led him through the parting and gawking and already-gossiping crowd.

"Cheeky, that woman," the mayor stared after them, all he could think to say. _"But that Murdoch sure is a lucky man,"_ he thought, as the couple disappeared from view.

)

Outside, their coats on, looking for a cab, for it was too early for anyone to be leaving the bigwig party, and thus there were none waiting, they celebrated the breakthrough. They had the piece of evidence they needed to get the warrant now, William was sure of it, the adventure seemingly all but sobering him up. "It's the piece of the puzzle we needed!" he declared, his big brown eyes sparkling enticingly at her. It would be impossible to sleep, not when they, and particularly William, were this excited. They walked further away from the entrance, William making plans. They would call the Inspector at home, despite it being this late. The Inspector would go to the judge first thing in the morning. He would get the warrant. William would be able to search the zoo tomorrow. William insisted it would be both of them, together, who went on the search, because they made such a good team.

They stood there, the steam of their rushed breaths puffing into the night air. And they agreed simultaneously, that the best thing to do was to go and get a hotel room together after all. Julia Ogden could not resist the chance to tease him, her elbow tucked into his as they headed for the closest hotel, somehow the coincidence spicing up their mood even more, for it was the Queen's Hotel where they were headed together, after this latest scandal, so much a part of their history, their remarkable story, and she squeezed him closer to her, saying, "Unfortunate, I guess, detective, you're not having a chance this time," she paused, alerting him to her playfulness, "This time, I suppose, you didn't bring your dominoes."

"Oh… true," he answered, keeping his smile at bay, "But I'm sure we'll think of something."

"I suppose we will," she gave, "I suppose we will."

 _And, most assuredly, they did. ( ;_

) (

Eloise had come in that morning, _two_ newspapers for the detective in her bag. The evidence that her employers had had a big affair to go to last night right before her eyes, the doctor's fancy purse left down on the foyer table, she smiled, _a bit sly_ , her look to herself. _It had not been on the first page, but newsworthy nonetheless – the couple kissing each other in public again_. Eloise shook her head, unsure who she was questioning, the detective and the doctor for their outlandish behavior, the press for making such a big deal out of it, or herself for being so secretly taken with their storybook romance. She tried to dampen her own bounce – the press had twisted the love-story into a dark commentary, in the end, anyway. _It would annoy the detective_ , she already knew.

)

The Murdoch's seemed happy enough, eating their yummy breakfast around their kitchen table. The youngest member of the family touted by all as a star, for he was nappy-less, and he was eating at the table sitting in a "bigboy" seat. Eloise set down a cup of coffee for the doctor and a cup of tea for the detective.

"Perhaps coffee would be better than the tea this morning, for you anyway, after last night, hmm William?" Julia suggested.

He lowered his newspaper, and then, over it, raised an eyebrow to scold her, making her giggle.

"Do you know Eloise…?" the tone of Julia's voice warned she would tease…

William feigned disinterest, went back to his reading…

"One of the first lies William ever told me was that he liked coffee," she said, her eyes on William as she brought her cup up to her lips to take a sip.

"An odd thing to lie about," Eloise said, buzzing about, busy at the stove behind them.

William dropped the paper down again and huffed. "I did not lie about liking coffee," he insisted. "I lied about having _previously_ _ **tasted**_ coffee," and then he thoroughly charmed her with his winsome wrinkling of a corner of his mouth admitting to the delightful deception. He would give even more, saying, "It was necessary… I wanted you to continue what you had started, inviting me to 'try some of that, dreadfully-bitter, Turkish brew' – WITH YOU," he said.

" _ **I**_ had started," she teased.

"Yes, you," he held.

Now it was Julia who huffed. "William Murdoch, your memory can be quite irritating at times," she pouted.

Smugly, giving her just the littlest cocky smile in the corner of her eye, he went back to perusing the paper.

Eloise waited for him to find it in the background, attuned to the detective having turned the page…

William's sigh was noteworthy, drawing both Julia's attention and that of their young son. "You were right – they did take a picture," he said, his eyes glancing into his wife's and then darting back to the headline.

Julia imagined it inside her head…

"The kiss?!" she declared.

"Mm," he answered. William folded the paper to bring the story with its accompanying headline and photograph into the fold and passed it over to her to better see for herself.

Julia's eyes gasped at the photo – as usual struck by how romantic and lovely and wonderful it was. She knew, by his reaction, by fate, that the headline would be derogatory, and she frowned even before she read it, hearing it for the first time herself as she read it aloud, "Murdoch's Kissing Away: Body-Dumper Laughs from Bushes."

She passed him back the paper…

And Eloise served the plates…

"I'm sorry, William," she said, suddenly realizing that she was starving. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she offered, giving him an apologetic wrinkle, and then scooping up a hearty forkful of eggs.

William placed the paper over to the side. He paused looking down at the meal. His stomach hinting it was not ready for food with a wafting up of nausea, William sighed, and then reached up and rubbed his brow, and then said, "It was a good idea, Julia." And then the detective looked into the doctor's eyes, and they got stuck – like they did sometimes, appreciating each other.

"Good," she said, breaking the quick spell.

He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, and then pushed himself to eat, starting with the toast, " _the toast seems like it'll work,_ " he advised himself.

"Good," he agreed.

) (

By the time the Inspector brought the warrant back to the stationhouse and the three of them, Brackenreid, Murdoch, and Dr. Ogden, took a police carriage to the Riverdale Zoo, it was already late in the afternoon. The place looked like a ghost town, no one in sight except for the gatekeeper, who had recognized them from their first visit, and who had called the Alderman to check on the warrant being legitimate. He had let them in, making clear as he did so that he had been instructed to offer them no assistance.

Now that there was no one to be found, William wondered to the others, "Do you think Alderman Lamb alerted them? They've already covered up the evidence, made a run for it?"

"It is quite a long trip to get here," Julia said in response.

" _Likely,"_ Brackenreid thought to himself.

But, then they heard some hammering off in the distance. _People, workers, were around after all_. They continued on, soon spotting some men cleaning the animal enclosures. The Inspector stopped them at the monkey cage, to say hello to his 'Athena lookalike.' There, they laid out their plan. First and foremost, they needed to inspect this "winter-house." Once there, they needed to determine if flies were actually present, explaining the maggots Dr. Ogden had found on the Body-Dumper's second, and most recent, body, despite it being the middle of winter when the man had been killed – the victim, they figured, was Elizabeth Mole's husband, Nicholas Mole. And they also needed to look for any signs indicating a specific location had been used to chop-up this second body – indications like an over-abundance of blood on the ground, and like an axe. If they found any blood, Dr. Ogden would take samples to determine if it was human.

After asking the men cleaning the cages where the winter-house was, they found it. It was far-off from the rest of the animal enclosures, closest to Dr. Mole's offices and surgery, but even a good distance from there. The building, _now they knew, designed by retired detective and current Don Jail inmate, Malcolm Lamb,_ was impressively huge, with enormously tall ceilings – _Julia figuring it was for the giraffes_. Overall, the whole construction stood out as being imposingly massive.

When they arrived, the humungous doors were closed. William spotted a winch off to the side that opened the doors. The very moment the first, narrow, crack of the door gave way, an overpowering stench slammed out, nearly knocking the Inspector and the doctor over. They both rushed to cover their faces, Julia exclaiming, "My Lord, that's unbelievable!"

William turned the winch further, opened the space wide enough for them to fit through, and then joined them. "If I wanted to hide a decaying body someplace where no one would smell it…"

"This would be the place," Julia finished his sentence. Then she nudged him, "Almost as bad as whatever had died in your walls, detective," she laughed.

"Almost," he gave.

The lighting was dim inside. The big doors opened into a central passageway, long, long rows of animal cages off to each side. The cages were sturdy – cement walls on all sides, cement floors. Julia reminded them about the divot in the floor of the other cage they had seen on their first visit here, where a hippopotamus had laid down in the drying cement. William noted that the cages even had bars up on the ceilings, better ensuring that there would be no escapes, he reasoned. They passed elephants, then some camels. A lion roared in the distance.

Finally, a worker appeared. He greeted them, introduced himself only as "Brian," and they explained that they were from the Constabulary, and that they had a warrant to search the property. The worker suggested he accompany them, arguing that the zoo could be a dangerous place. Much as others had said before, Brian had lots of stories of people being severely injured here.

Julia instinctively covered her growing baby, in her mind _soothing her little one – their Mary_ , her own gesture reminding her that there were animal babies here too. "Brian," she asked, "I heard there was a baby hippo born here, about a month or so ago?" She hadn't said, but she had ulterior motives for the question, for she figured that _such a birth would involve a substantial amount of blood… that it could be the place where the body could have been chopped-up and the evidence left behind would have been less noticeable._

"Oh yes," Brian answered her, "The mother and baby are here in the winter-house… the other hippos too. Brian explained that there were different sized enclosures inside the winter-house, and that they had used one of the smaller ones, one that was further away from all the noises and the hustle and bustle, for the pregnant mother to give birth in.

They came to the giraffes. All three of the visitors stopping abruptly to take in such an amazing and uncommon sight.

"They are magnificent!" Julia declared.

"They most certainly are," William agreed beside her.

It was then – that moment! " _Slap, slap-slap_ ," one of the giraffes swatted its tail.

Julia gasped! "Did you see that, William… detective," she corrected, "It swatted a fly! There are flies!"

"Yes," William replied, "That's good." He turned to the Inspector.

"Could be the place, Murdoch," the Inspector agreed.

"I'll need to get specimens, collect some of the eggs," Dr. Ogden started planning. "Hopefully I can find some maggots even…" she wondered. "Brian," she asked, "Is there a place where they discard the…" _Julia considered the word, 'feces,' but then decided instead_ , "Manure. Is there a place where the zoo dumps the animals' manure?" she asked.

The group began walking down the central aisle again as Brian explained the procedures for cleaning the animal cages, and it was determined that, since the manure was dumped outside, it would be too cold for it to contain maggots.

They arrived at the hippo enclosure.

 _There was no denying it, that baby hippo was incredibly cute!_

The mother hippo made a sound, likely worried about her baby, now that strangers had appeared. The sound surprised the visitors – more like a groan, somewhat like a roar of a lion, but a bit softer.

The Inspector marveled, "I expected it to sound like pig!"

"It does a bit," Julia replied, "Just bigger, like a cow mooing, sort of." She looked over to William. _**Oh! He had seen something!**_ William had that look she knew – his wholly-absorbed, inside, focused, entranced, look. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the Inspector had noticed it too.

Each of the cages had water for the animals, some in simple water buckets, others in large metal tubs, some in much larger water troughs. In this enclosure, there was a water tub. It had been knocked about, by the looks of things, and the animals had stepped in the spilled water on the floor… And there, right in front of them on the cement floor, was the hippo footprint. And William Murdoch was staring intently down, at that hippo footprint, on the floor.

His brain was firing inside, back to _the ultraviolet photographs of the bruise he had taken six months ago, the bruise on the Body-Dumper's FIRST body, the bruise from the victim's broken leg, that Julia had said had been caused by his leg being rammed by something that would have weighed hundreds of pounds – he had figured the object might be something like a car. It had broken the man's leg, and it had left the bruise – "_ _ **That**_ _bruise! It's just like in that dream… When I was giving the lecture! The drawing of the bruise on the blackboard! It was an animal, not a machine! It was a hippopotamus!"_ he remembered it clearly now, the pieces clicking into place. _"And Julia said that the broken leg had been treated by someone who had medical experience, and_ _ **that bruise**_ _had been made by_ _ **a hippo**_ _, and so the person who most likely treated it was_ _ **the veterinarian**_ _…!"_

"William?" Julia asked, seeing him raising his eyes, coming out of his trance.

"I can't believe it. I think you were right, Inspector," he said, monotone, still spacy. The detective glanced over at Brian. He wanted to tell them everything he had figured out, but he decided against doing so in front of one of the zoo workers. And, too, he found he was bothered by it all still feeling so confoundingly muddled. _He was getting a headache,_ he rubbed at the pain.

Brian guessed at the problem and excused himself, saying he had a lot of work to get to, and he would be back by the main entrance if they needed him.

"Well, spill it Murdoch – what was I right about?" the Inspector asked, his voice in a whisper.

"You were right, perhaps… At least I think," William wrinkled up his face with doubt, then finished, "That it was Elizabeth Mole," he answered, also whispering. He gestured down at the watery hippo footprint on the floor, noticing that it was already starting to dry.

Julia grasped it immediately, _at least partially_ , exclaiming, barely keeping her voice to a whisper, "The footprint, look at the shape. It's just like the…"

The Inspector had caught up, finishing Dr. Ogden's thought, "The bruise on the man we could never identify – last fall, the bloke with no face from the rifle shot to the back of the head, with the broken leg," he said, recognizing the size and shape from the detective's photographs, and all the big to-do of publishing the picture of the unique bruise in the newspapers to see if the public could help identify what had made it.

"Julia, do you think a hippopotamus would weigh enough to have broken the unidentified man's leg?" William hurried his question, excited.

"I believe so. Yes!" she answered, the two of them sharing that sparkle they got with mutual discovery.

The Inspector cried out, "The hippo's the killer!?"

 _Somehow, thankfully, they managed to keep it subtle, William and Julia's shared rolling their eyes…_

"Not exactly," William replied, looking to Julia.

"Inspector," Dr. Ogden would explain, acting as coroner, "The victim was injured here, at the zoo, a month before he was killed – William's… uh, Detective Murdoch's ultraviolet photograph detected the old bruise. He had been shot in the back of the head. That was what had killed him, and it would have been a month later. So, no, the hippo is NOT the killer."

"The two cases are linked," Murdoch explained, excitedly. "Both victims' bodies were dumped at our Body Farm. The first injured by a hippo before he died, the second with fly maggots on it in the middle of a frozen winter…"

"You see, Inspector," Dr. Ogden added, then looked to William a bit awed, "The zoo connects the two victims. That, and the tranquilizer gun." She turned to the Inspector and added, "We've since learned that Elizabeth Mole actually invented that tranquilizer gun." She turned back to William, "Is that why you think it was Dr. Mole…" Julia asked her husband, "Because of her tranquilizer gun?"

"No," he explained, "It's because it was most likely Dr. Mole who treated the first victim's broken leg."

"Oh, I see," she responded. "But…"

William frowned. "Not decisive, but another piece of evidence against her, I'd say, Dr. Mole having the medical experience necessary to set his broken leg. She links both victims, she worked here at the zoo with the first victim, we know, because she was probably the one who fixed his broken leg, and the second one was probably her husband, killed with her tranquilizer gun, his body left here, probably chopped-up here, where the flies could lay their eggs, so that the body would have maggots on it… She could have brought her axe from her home. It's missing." William wrinkled his face, _it was all mere conjecture, but there was some sense to it…_

"All right then," Julia would be the one to get down to the nitty-gritty. "I need to get samples of the flies and their eggs. And I suspect the place where the baby hippo was born may be the place where the body was chopped-up…"

"Yes, of course!" William interrupted, "to hide the blood. You never cease to amaze me, Julia… um, doctor," he said with a bow.

"Brian said the smaller cage they used for the birthing was further down," she replied. "I'll take a look. If there is blood, I need to sample it to check to see if it's human," she added.

"Well, I think we have enough that we will want to be taking Elizabeth Mole down to the stationhouse for questioning…" the Inspector surmised, "Not enough for an arrest, but enough to warrant holding her for suspicion. We'll need another carriage, maybe some constables. I'll go make the calls." He sighed to himself. It was going to be a very long walk back to the front gate where he would be able to use the phone.

"I'll go find Dr. Mole," William gave himself an assignment, then included, "And I have some questions for Brian as well. And we still really need that axe," he added.

)

Detective Murdoch found Brian back behind the right-side row of the animal enclosures, readying some of the animal meals, " _Mostly various types of grains_ ," he noted. When he inquired about a man who had had his leg broken by a hippopotamus, he finally found the identity of the first Body-Dumper victim, _and it was stunning!_ The rest of the world thought the man had escaped from the Don Jail a half a year ago. But, in the end it turned out that he had not escaped at all. Dr. Restell, the man famous for being convicted, and sentenced to hang, for committing abortions, he had instead been murdered – shot in the back of the head with a rifle, a month after he had been stepped on by a hippopotamus, here, at the Riverdale Zoo, when helping Dr. Elizabeth Mole restrain the male hippopotamus who was going crazy because one of the females was in heat.

Brian explained that Dr. Restell helped out at the zoo, and that Restell was considered to be particularly valuable because of his medical skills as a doctor. "That's how Restell ended up being so close to the doc," Brian explained, using the colloquial term 'the doc' to refer to Dr. Elizabeth Mole.

William sensed that Brian was the type of man who enjoyed his gossip, and when it came to Dr. Restell and Dr. Elizabeth Mole, William could tell he had quite a bit more to tell. He pressed, asking, "Was there any talk? Maybe there was something more to their relationship…?" William wrinkled his face, doubting.

Brain quickly folded, bursting to tell the tales. The rumors around the zoo were that Restell and the pretty lady veterinarian were secret lovers. Brian, himself, had observed the two doctors, "intimately entwined," _if you caught Brian's drift_ , "here in the winter-house sometimes, other times out in the rest of the zoo, hidden in the cages of some of the quieter, safer, animals." Brian had always figured that Restell had gotten hurt, "broke his leg – bad, when him and the doc were in the hippo enclosure at the end of last summer, sneakin' a rendezvous. That story they told – that they was in there to restrain the over-excited male, that just don't make sense. Why didn't they bring the 'Tranq,' then? Nah, them hippopotami, they're all nothin but sweeties – wouldn't hurt a fly," Brian insisted.

Before William took his leave to go find and question Elizabeth Mole, he decided to put his 'hunch' about Malcolm Lamb to rest, the evidence all pointing at Elizabeth Mole now. He asked Brian if he knew of the man who built this winter-house.

"You mean Lamb, Jr…?" Brian asked, chuckling at his own brazen use of the more derogatory nickname for the retired and convicted policeman. "Yeah. Yeah. Everybody here knows him. Turns out he's a good guy, despite – a retired detective, you know?" Brian checked.

William pinched his lips, "I know," all he gave. He waited for the witness to go on.

"Yeah. The men here all like him," Brian got back on track, "The woman too," he added with a chuckle.

"You mean Dr. Mole?" William hurried to ask.

"Yeah," Brian answered, "Lamb was the closest thing to Restell the doc had after Restell escaped. We always wondered…? You know, it seemed strange, Restell and the doc so in love, and then he goes and leaves her. You've seen her, detective," Brian paused, asked man-to-man, "Who leaves a woman like that?" he questioned. And then Brian thought forward, and he began to shake his head. He chuckled, "Though, of course, that's exactly what the doc's husband up and did too, left her. I guess there must be something…"

"Perhaps," William replied, mostly just to say something, to placate, because William was distracted, his brain barreling down multiple paths of possibilities and clues in his head. He was trying to map it out, _Elizabeth and Restell were secret lovers. Restell got stepped on by the hippo – probably when they were hiding in the hippo enclosure making love…_

Brian interrupted William's thoughts, declaring, "You know, Detective Murdoch, Lamb got hurt too, with her, um with the doc, now that I think about it. But… nah, nah. I don't think so, not that Lamb would complain, mind you…" Brian halted and looked up into William's face. "Sorry, detective," he said, noting the man looked confused. "Lamb and the doc was together in the water buffalo pen, and they both got hurt… About a month ago. Doc just got a shiner, and a split lip, but Lamb broke some ribs, got his face all busted up. Just seems to me to be more legit. I mean, there ain't nothin' goin' on between them two, you know, like with Restell. Lamb's too old..." Brain paused and looked at William, adding, "Older than you."

William pinched his lips together, absorbing the unintended jab of the comment, and nodded. "Yes," all he said. Then he took a breath and asked, "So Lamb and Dr. Mole, they were close though?"

"Yeah," Brian answered without having to think about it. "They got close because the doc needed to work with Lamb on constructing things here, around the zoo, for the animals. They seem to be good friends, is all… at least, I think," Brain explained. "Now," he added, "Lamb helps the doc with the animals too, sort of like Doc Restell did, but he don't know as much." Brian stepped behind his wheelbarrow full of animal feed. "That all, detective?" he asked, "I'm runnin' late."

"Yes, that's good. Thank you for your help," William replied. Thinking of Julia still in the building, he added, "Oh, uh Brian, our coroner, Dr. Ogden. She's still collecting some samples in here. Could you check on her, if you get a chance?" he asked.

"Sure thing, detective," Brian said over his shoulder.

Before winching the big front doors opened, William checked down the long, long corridor to see if he could spot Julia. _Nothing_ , he turned and continued on with his part of solving the case.

)

There was a good amount of ground to cover to get to Elizabeth's offices and surgery, and William was walking at a hearty pace on the snowy, sloshy, barely-shoveled path. He was glad for the exercise and the chance to mull over his thoughts. _Dr. Restell and Elizabeth were lovers. If the husband found out, then he could have killed Restell. Then Elizabeth killed her husband. But why wait so long? If it was revenge, why not kill Nicholas Mole six months ago…?_

And, all of a sudden, it didn't feel like William's mind could go fast enough, thought after thought cascading by, each one important, _maybe,_ making it hard to let go of one as the next thought emerged, straining his head till it would burst, trying to decide which thought to chase after, and which to let go of. " _The rifle that killed Restell – could it have been one that belongs to the guards at the Don Jail?"_ And, somewhat from that thought, _"Nicholas Mole was a guard at the Don Jail, the same prison Dr. Restell supposedly escaped from – that seems important, right?"_ And then his head really started to hurt, because he still suspected Malcolm Lamb, and his brain threw that into the mix, _"And how does Lamb fit in? And if he does, how would Malcolm Lamb, a prisoner, dump TWO bodies at our Body Farm? Could Lamb have been in love with Elizabeth, and Lamb killed Restell? And better yet, why would Lamb, knowing I would suspect him, use my Body Farm at all?"_ And then, from some other side of William's racing brain, _"Does Alderman Lamb play a role? The Inspector always says to follow the money – could I be missing something, there?_ Two opposing thoughts at the exact same time, the first, more a memory, _about all the money involved with the Pink Panther Diamond and the fact that that big affair was held right here at Alderman Lamb's Riverdale Zoo,_ and from the other side, with a niggling, " _And where's that axe – that axe that should have been at Elizabeth Mole's woodpile? Did she bring it here, to chop-up her husband's body before bringing all the pieces to our Body Farm?"_

And it all halted abruptly there, because he had remembered, breathless with the guilt and the sheer stupidness of it – _HE had told Elizabeth Mole about his booby-traps at the Body Farm…! During the whole Pink Panther Diamond – Neil Catfrey – Sally Pendrick case, while he was setting-up the Constabulary's protection of the big diamond during Thurston Howell's 'Howell-oween Bash,' with the lion being dyed pink. She would have known! She could have planned the body dump, knowing about his traps – brought the stepladders to get over the fence without tripping the wires! It had to be her! He had to find Dr. Elizabeth Mole._

)

Julia slapped her thighs as she stood from her long squat, re-checking the fly and maggot samples she had packed into her medical bag. She sighed and looked around once more. _It had been a delaying tactic. Still, she was alone_. She had found what she thought was the cage where the hippo birth could have occurred, and it did appear that there were some blood stains on the floor in there. In the cage, there was a camel, and she had put off going in alone, thinking she would ask Brian for help. But now she had not been able to find the man, and so she had returned on her own. She stood here now, trying to work up the nerve to go in and get the blood samples on her own. Her mind flashed to remember _William whispering to her in the Inspector's office the other day, wanting her to go with him to the zoo – to this zoo, because she had promised not to be alone once she had reached the halfway point of her pregnancy. She was still not to that halfway point, close, but not there._ Julia used this as her final decision maker. She lifted the big, heavy latch of the cage door. She would venture it.

)

Arriving at Elizabeth Mole's offices and surgery building, William's ceaseless barraging of thoughts still pounded inside his head. _The footprints left by the Body-Dumper in the dirt, and then subsequently, in the snow, at their Body Farm, too big to be Elizabeth's._ And then he remembered the odd weight distribution of the footprints in the snow – _so much like those left by orphan urchins, like young Dorrie and Pip, from when they used bigger shoes and they wadded-up socks into the toes to make them fit. It could have been Elizabeth, wearing a man's boots…?_

In through the back door, the one closest to the back path to the winter-house, and on first impression the place was quiet. William considered, _standing still, listening- so that he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears_ , that there was no one else there. _He was alone_. It was an instinct, _and he had learned to trust them when they came_ , to search the place for evidence of a struggle. " _Perhaps, just perhaps, one of the victims had been killed here. Restell's murder was quite a long time ago, half a year – not likely to be much from him. But, he was shot, and there was not a bullet. Perhaps… lodged in the wall somewhere?"_ William began his searching.

It was in the surgery – " _so, there could be an explanation other than murder_ ," William's brain balanced against his anticipation – there was blood. _He would need Julia to test it, to see if it was human_ , he planned forward. It was in the cracks of the floorboards, but he was optimistic that it was a clue, that it would not end up being blood from an animal, so it would be evidence in the case, because it was far from the table where the animals were treated, more to the side of the room, near the cabinets. William's mind dashed down the path of imagining the crime taking place inside his head… " _the blood had been cleaned up afterwards, too long ago to be from Dr. Restell, more likely from the husband, when Nicholas Mole was killed a month ago. The body was chopped-up, unlikely in here – too small…"_ William noted the height of the ceilings, imagined swinging an axe – _the missing axe, from Elizabeth's woodpile. "No. No, not in here, the chopping…But the body's head had been missing, he could have sustained facial injuries, a broken nose that we would not have known about… The body, Mole, had a boxer's fracture – there could have been a fight, here… Maybe he laid on the floor, here, right here, a month ago, dead, dying, bleeding… after being shot behind his knee with the tranquilizer dart from the tranquilizer gun – It's stored right there, in that cabinet…"_

From his squatted position over the suspected clue, the blood on the floor, William lifted out of his thoughts and began to observe his surroundings again. His eyes caught a shadow, out of his periphery, _a shadow, a tiny divot, in the wall – a dent, right there, in the plaster._ He stood to better investigate it. Interrupting, _always it felt so abrupt and so rude_ , and too, _almost always, it was important_ , his brain whispered it in from the other side, somewhere – " _Malcolm Lamb had broken ribs, and a broken nose, about a month ago!"_ Maybe it wasn't the victim lying bleeding on the floor, the new possibility emerged. " _It could be Lamb's blood? Even Elizabeth – she had a split lip. They made up that tale, that they were injured by the water buffalo, not because they were making love together a month ago, like what had happened with Restell and Elizabeth in the hippo enclosure six months prior, but because they had had a violent confrontation with Elizabeth's husband. They killed him! One of them killed him, during that confrontation!"_ The images, hazy at the edges, an odd, greenish tint, flashed by in his mind as he envisioned it… _The husband caught Lamb and Elizabeth, here in the surgery, maybe kissing_ , he filled in where he had doubts. _Mole rushed in, furious, out of control, shoved them apart._ The images flew faster _, Lamb's head rammed into wall there, making the dent. Then Mole turned on his wife, punched Elizabeth, knocking her to the floor, hurting her lip. The two men struggled, punches were thrown. Blood splattered. Mole was bigger, stronger than Lamb. He broke his ribs, kicking and kicking at the nearly unconscious man lying on the floor, bleeding there, where the blood is in the cracks… Then Mole went for Elizabeth again. Lamb, unseen behind him, forces himself to stand up, stumbles over to the cabinet…_

 _ **There was a noise! In the other room!**_ Sudden stillness, through every inch of his body, as William froze and listened… _**Another noise – a drawer?! Someone's there!**_

Malcolm didn't see the detective behind him. He thought he was alone. Elizabeth had run to the construction site. _Warned him that the Constabulary had the warrant, that they were here at the zoo, that they were searching, that they would find something, that they had to go NOW, that it couldn't wait until they had planned. To get away, they needed the money. They needed the bags, with the supplies… hair dye, fake beard until he could grow a real one, papers for their new lives…_

William watched, partially stunned, realizing right this second that he truly had not expected to have been right – _It was Malcolm Lamb!_ The man was _gathering up things. He was making his escape_. The story unfolded at lightning speed in his head. He understood that it had to have been Lamb who had planned the disposing of Mole's body, " _chopped it up,_ _like he'd done before, Lamb's instinct, a good detective's instinct, that smaller pieces are harder to identify._ _Elizabeth brought him her axe, from her house. Lamb knew the body pieces needed to be dumped in the woods, they would be food made available to the animals, the scavengers, to carry away, to decompose more rapidly than a whole body would, left and dumped intact_." One of those intrusive whispers – _**"Lamb had been badly injured. He was in the Don Jail's infirmary.**_ _That's why they had to wait! They couldn't get rid of Mole's body right away, they had to hide the body until Lamb could help, they had to hide it for a week while Lamb was in the infirmary, and they hid the body in the foul-smelling winter-house… Then later, Lamb chopped it up! It had to be Elizabeth who disposed of her husband's body, took the pieces to the Body Farm, because Lamb is an inmate_. Another side-whisper, _**"Why would Lamb tell her to dump it there?"**_

" _That's it. Got it all!"_ Malcolm's inner voice declared, " _Gotta go. Hurry! – Elizabeth's waiting at the winter-house…"_

Malcolm turned…

Eye-to-eye, the world changed in a flash.

"Murdoch!?" the gasp - so forlorn under the surprise. _He was done for. Murdoch had gotten him again. Stood before him. He was caught in the act, Elizabeth's Tranq. gun aimed at him. He would not get away. Maybe she still would… At least, maybe Elizabeth would be alright…_

"Malcolm Lamb," Murdoch replied. "It seems you were planning on going somewhere."

 _There was a connection between these two men – there always had been. Lamb would never wholly know why, but to this man, to this man, he felt his tale needed to be told._

It blurted out like a blubbering, his confession, "I love her, Murdoch. And Elizabeth cares for me. I gave up the lady I loved for justice in the past. I loved Sarah. I still do. But that's over now. I missed my chance, then, with Sarah. Not this time. Not this time…"

 _It was the look in Murdoch's eyes, a compassion, an empathy, a KNOWN PAIN_. It melted any resolve Malcolm Lamb had, _just the little flicker of unspoken, subconscious hope that Murdoch might let him go_ – " _He'd done it with Constance Gardiner,"_ the reminder fired, fizzled away in the background.

Malcolm put the bags down on the floor and lifted his hands, surrendering to the detective. He told the story. Elizabeth had been planning to escape, to run away, with Dr. Restell. Now it would be with him. He would take his chance. He loved Elizabeth. He had killed her husband, when there were others around, in the middle of a typical day here. There had been no gunshot, he had used the Tranq. gun, so the murder was easily concealed. They were able to convince the other prison guard and the other workers that any ruckus overheard in the surgery had been because of one of Elizabeth and her husband's fights. They had claimed that Mole had gotten unduly jealous when he found his wife treating Lamb's wounds from restraining the water buffalo. They planned to tell people that they had both gotten hurt working with the water buffalo – "the animal gets crazed, it would be believable." Or people might think that Elizabeth had actually been battered, instead, by her husband. Either way it didn't harm their story, for it was common that Elizabeth and her husband to lie about whenever Mole had beaten her up, blaming her bruises on the animals. They held to the believable lie, said that she and her husband had fought in the surgery. Lamb walked out, injured, supposedly by the water buffalo. Elizabeth stayed in the surgery with Mole's body. He told the other guard that the couple was 'making up after their fight,' and that Mole wanted the guard to cover for him at the prison. That guard took Lamb and the other prisoners back to the jail. Later, when everyone was gone, Elizabeth took Mole's body out and hid it in the winter-house. The smell inside there was so disgusting that it would cover up the stench of the rotting body. Lamb admitted, "As soon as I could, she helped me get rid of it." Lamb chopped it up, nearly a week later. "It was perfect, in a way – the hippo birth happened at just the right time," Lamb said, "The blood from the birth was a perfect cover. I chopped it up. Elizabeth's only part was that she disposed of the body…"

"What of Restell?" William asked.

"The day Mole, uh, that day," Malcolm began, "I had kissed Elizabeth. I told her I loved her, and that I wanted to protect her from her husband. Mole had beaten her again, you see. She said it was because he thought _WE_ were having an affair," Lamb paused, looked into Murdoch's eyes, "I swear we weren't, Murdoch. I was smitten, Elizabeth knew that, but she… um, it was not that way for her. Not like it had been with Restell. She told me, then." Lamb gestured, wanted to put his arms down, talk this out, heart-to-heart, man-to-man.

William nodded. Lamb brought his hands down, then reached up and rubbed his brow. _Just a little, William recognized the gesture as like his own._ It tightened the connection between the two men, again that tug in William's chest.

Lamb continued the tale, "There had been rumors, about Restell and Elizabeth, having secret… That they were in love, having an affair…" Lamb cleared his throat, then went on, "It was said there were… trysts, in the animal pens. That that's what was going on when Restell broke his leg…"

William nodded. _That fit with what he had learned. Lamb's story felt believable – so far._

Lamb continued, "Mole was suspicious. One night, Restell didn't return to the prison with the other prisoners. That happened sometimes, an emergency surgery, usually the…" Lamb rubbed his brow again, "the uh, given reason. Um, on this particular night, Mole came back to the zoo. Like I said, he was suspicious. The day, um… Mole… when I killed Mole, he had overheard Elizabeth telling me that Mole had caught her and Restell, here in the surgery together, having…um. Mole beat Restell. Elizabeth said he dragged Restell out and shoved his limp body into the paddy wagon. That was the last she saw of him. The next day the story came out about Restell and his cellmate trying to escape…" Lamb checked with Murdoch, "The papers said…"

"I remember," William gave, "The cellmate was killed, shot at the fenceline. Dr. Restell supposedly had managed to escape." In the back of William's brain, he was putting the pieces together. _Mole killed Restell that night six months ago, shot him in the back of the head after he took him away in the paddy wagon. Then Mole dumped Restell's body at their Body Farm. It was close to here. There were lots of bodies buried there. It was just Mole's bad luck that Julia and her students found the body the next day, because of their seasonal-effects on decomposition study…_

"Yes," Lamb went on, "Elizabeth never believed he escaped. She said she knew her husband had killed Restell that night. And that Mole beat her, and that he as much as bragged about killing Restell to her. That ever since then, Mole was hypervigilant, watching her all the time. She wasn't safe…" Lamb frowned. "She was right, Murdoch. Mole stormed in here while she was telling me the whole thing. You already know the rest. I killed him, protecting her from the violent man. She helped me cover it up…"

William's mind shot back to the clues, envisioning _Elizabeth Mole in the snow, wearing her husband's clothes, his big boots, making the irregular footprints… She would have used his horse and wagon, sold them afterwards so that they would also appear to have gone missing, as would be expected if her husband had left her. It was probably those same clothes that she had worn to dump the body at their Body Farm that she had burned where he had found the pit behind her house. "The axe…?"_ he wondered…

"All she did was dispose of the body for me," Malcolm begged, at the end, "She's beautiful, and lovely, and innocent. You have to let her go… like you did for Constance Gardiner…"

"Constance Gardiner was a murderer," William heard himself say, his conscious battling with his own demons. _What he had done back then, worse, because of that…_

Malcolm Lamb jumped, seeing the opening, "But Elizabeth is not. You have to let her go," with such pleading in his eyes. And then he added, "Mole beat her, Murdoch. Locked her in his tiny prison he'd constructed for her, trapped her with terror, and he beat her, beat her all the time. And he would have killed her someday – maybe _that_ day. I had no choice. I know you see that. Let it go. Let me walk out that door. You didn't see me. Please…"

William's heart felt the pull, the sinking, and he answered, shaking his head, "You know I can't…"

"You run into brutes everywhere, Murdoch. And people like you and me, we don't cower in the face of injustice, now, do we?" Lamb argued.

William remembered, his sadness palpable in his voice as he replied, _for it was devastatingly undeniable, how much it was like him letting go of Julia in order to free Eva Moon, letting Constance Gardiner escape instead of stopping Julia's wedding to Darcy,_ "Justice for Harriet King, the cost was your love for Sarah Connolly. Back then, though, your relentless devotion to justice was why you left one of the cement blocks of your three victims' remains by the river? So that I might find it, and possibly solve Harriet King's murder. Is that why, this time, you had Elizabeth use our Bod…"

WHAM! – the blow landed against the back of his head from behind. William dropped, _wobbly, but falling,_ William dropped to the floor. _He still held the Tranq. gun… Tried to aim it…_

Whack! – Lamb kicked the gun from his hand.

Elizabeth grabbed the bags, passed one to Malcolm…

Murdoch was up, the two men fighting for possession of the gun. William had it! _Mostly, he had it_. The bag in Lamb's hand – an impromptu weapon – Lamb swung it, walloping Murdoch in the face, the gun, _unseen, just the sound of it,_ clanking, and sliding off to the side, somewhere on the floor. _William saw stars_ , stumbled, faltered, _so dizzy,_ fighting with all his might to steady, to balance…

Escaping, the two of them were out the door…

Elizabeth stopped, and turned back….

William stammered, rushing to find the Tranq. gun on the floor…

Elizabeth's voice over his shoulder…

"You have a choice detective – chase after us, or go save your wife!"

William grabbed the Tranq. gun, and rushed, full-speed, for the winter-house. _**"Julia! Julia was in danger!"**_

)

Dr. Mole had surprised her while she was swabbing-up blood on the ground inside the camel cage. Grabbed her medical bag from behind her. Pulled out a scalpel. Elizabeth Mole said she was sorry, but she couldn't let Julia finish. She would lock her up somewhere – in one of the cages, so Julia could not get away, to alert the others, or to stop her, and then Elizabeth had made her escape.

)

There was a big, uprooted tree, now missing all of its leaves and much of its bark, cemented into the center of the cage, " _For the animals to climb on_ ," Julia explained its existence to herself inside of her head. She recognized the tactic, distract herself from feeling overwhelmed with fear by thinking about something specific, right in front of her, grounding herself. _William would come back soon. She just had to wait it out,_ she tried to calm her nerves. _Slam_ , the sickening feeling of the panic struck, like a lightning bolt – " _Unless Elizabeth had hurt him! Maybe, she already had, before she came for me!" Maybe she was using Julia's own scalpel, had it aimed at William right now!_ Her hand covered her pregnant belly. She worked to quell her fears that William had been hurt, pushed away, pushed down, the rising thought, _that he could be killed._

 _She needed to get out of there._ Julia's eyes focused on the bars, " _so much like prison-cell bars, especially when experienced from this side_ , she told herself, with the slight whish of a nervous giggle. _She must have been settling down,_ a part of her thought, _for the memory that came was pleasant_. It had been the bars that had triggered it, her being on _this_ side of the bars. She remembered it started when George arrested her for teaching impoverished women about contraception, while Darcy was out of town. She chuckled to herself, _that's why she had chosen that day, not wanting Darcy to know_. She had figured that William would come down to the cells. _It had been such a long time since she had seen him, and she had worked herself up into quite a lather thinking that he would come. Such a churning in her heart as she asked herself if she would be able to hide how much she still loved him – even more of a flutter when she asked, would he still love her? And then suddenly, William was just there… and she knew, she knew and the earth quaked and rattled and rolled underneath her with the knowing of it – she was still madly in love with him, and he with her. And it hurt so badly, and she knew it hurt them both, and she still wondered how they each had the strength to play like that that truth wasn't so, but they had done so. She remembered stepping herself back into the cell and pulling the door, those bars, closed between them, William on the other side, telling her she was being stubborn, and her, knowing in her heart, that William, unlike Darcy, admired her for her determination and her bravery and her strength in standing up for her principles, that even more, William loved her for it… "Actually_ ," she thought, " _the memory was not so much a pleasant one, as instead, one that was bittersw…"_

Her gasp and the wild swinging of her head, up to see, at the same time as when it moved – up in the tree…

 _I'm sure you've guessed by now…_

 _that it was_

 _the tiger…_

the Tiger, _that was up in the tree._

)) ((

*In Malcolm Lamb's life, there have been _two tales_. It could be argued that in both, Malcolm Lamb chose the Tiger. The first of those life-tales is from his past, choosing back then to stay fast to his obsession with gaining justice for Harriet King – we see that Justice is Malcolm Lamb's Tiger. Upon encountering the dilemma between the Lady, or the Tiger that first time, Malcolm Lamb did _NOT_ choose the Lady in the tale, letting his love for Sarah Connelly be the door he did not open. He had faced the consequences of his choosing the Tiger back then, much as his father, the second "Lamb" in our tale, the rich and powerful Alderman Lamb, had claimed he had, by taking his jail sentence like a good man would.

But Malcolm Lamb had two tales, and in the second tale, fate had given him the same choice again, between the Lady, or the Tiger. It could be argued that Malcolm Lamb had chosen the Tiger once more, by defending Elizabeth Mole from the injustices visited upon her by her husband. In that way, Malcom Lamb had faced and slain the Tiger. He had stood up for Justice. But, consider his true motivations. Is it not, that in making this choice, Malcolm Lamb was truly choosing the Lady after all?

So too, when considering Malcolm Lamb's confession to William. Didn't Malcolm Lamb choose Justice by confessing the truth? But, I must ask you, was he telling for Justice? Was Malcolm Lamb choosing the Tiger when he told William his tale? Or was he telling it for the Lady – to plead for her freedom? No. No, this time, this second chance, Malcolm Lamb, _much like William had done that night when HIS Lady had shown up in that stunning red velvet dress,_ no,Malcolm Lamb, this second time, he chose the Lady.

**The saying, ' _ **two shakes of lamb's tail'**_ means 'very quick.' This has been a long and winding story, and not much of it has been very quick. But, things are happening quickly now, and that ending has reared its head on the horizon. It will not be long now until we know, we know in a very, very real and physical sense, whether it will be, in the end, The Lady, or the Tiger.


	23. 23: Riding the Tiger's BackT

The Lady, or the Tiger?

Chapter 23: Riding the Tiger's Back

Much like William's tiger hand-shadow puppet, up on the ceiling of William Jr.'s bedroom, the Tiger peered down from atop of the tree undetected, studying, observing, assessing, the new human in its cage. _Was this human prey or a new handler? Its scent is similar to that of the human-leader, maybe this one, also, is powerful._ The Tiger did not move, did not give away its presence, as it watched, patient, inquisitive – learning.

The new human walked the periphery of the cage. _Wise, it is wise…_ It settled, still and quiet, by the door. The Tiger, behind the curiosity's sight line now, it ventured so stalk, to slink. _First, secure the paws, steady, slow, tighten the grip on the branch. Easy, the rise. Be smooth, subtle, for the turn…_

 _Whoosh…!_

The human spooked…

Found the Tiger!

The Tiger froze, and its eyes, its wild jungle eyes connected to hers. The intelligence there took her breath away with terror. Julia too, froze, faced with the presence of the Tiger in the cage. " _In a cage. I'm locked in a cage…_ " the reminder of the unbelievable emerged like the world dimly appearing behind a lifting fog, _"…in a cage with a Tiger_." It tingled every hair on her body, the flash, the briefest flash, of the memory of _performing the postmortem on the circus-tiger years ago, and her finding its stomach full of the woman who it had eaten_.

Julia did not know how she knew, but she KNEW, not to turn away, not to turn her back to the Tiger, most definitely, _NOT to RUN…_

BUT, just the thought " _to run,"_ twitched her legs with innate desire, and then she noticed, _how weak, how feeble, her legs were underneath her,_ and like a wave, the panic flooded in.

Her fairy-godmotherly voice spoke in her head, " _Stay still! Stay still, and breathe, Julia."_ It was shallow, that first breath. " _Now_ ," the voice said, calmness possible, the inner-voice advised, " _Think. Think_." Another breath, and Julia told herself that _still, still the Tiger had not moved since she had first spotted it. "That was good,"_ her inner-self whispered _._ Their eyes were still locked, and she worried to look away. It took effort, coaching. " _You need to find a way to survive this, at least until William, until help, can get here. Can you get out?_ " the question sounded so obvious. _Behind her,_ she knew for certain, _the door was locked. She had already checked. "Perhaps over the sides of the cage…?" She would need to look up. She would need to move her eyes away from the Tiger's._

So quick, the glance up – seeing, _the light through the glass ceiling so high above the_ bars on the top of the cage _– they were inside a large, barred box, the bars of the walls cemented into the cement floor._ Julia re-fixed her eyes back into those of the Tiger, up above her in the tree. _"There was not a way out" –_ she rushed to the next thought to stave off impending helplessness, " _So survive and stay inside, then. Think. Think."_

)

Two people mounted upon a one-humped dromedary camel, the back rider, Malcolm Lamb, bouncing and bobbling about as much as their two bags flopping at the camel's sides, made their escape down a steep snowy hill in the middle of a field. Woods promised safety in the distance. He had told her about his gift, he had confessed to the murder to Detective Murdoch, the murder that _she_ had committed. It did not seem important now, since they had both escaped, but still, he saw it as gallant.

Elizabeth thanked him, and then apologized again for dumping the body at Detective Murdoch's Body Farm. She had had her reasons, _mostly a sort of revenge for what her husband had done to Adam – dumping the body of the man she loved in that horrid place_ , but she realized now that it was a mistake – a big one.

Malcolm held onto Elizabeth's waist for dear life. _It had all happened so fast_ , _and staying mounted on the top of this CAMEL, "I can't believe we're on a CAMEL!" seemed insanely precarious_.

"Why not the two horses like we had planned?" he asked from behind her, his voice labored and winded and jostled.

Elizabeth frowned, unseen. "Just hold on," she instructed, fighting to keep her patience. "Camels are better in the snow anyway Malcolm – feet made for sand," she heard herself sound calmer, more in control.

"Sorry," Malcolm offered, of course, _Elizabeth was the expert when it came to animals. "And besides, she'd coped incredibly well with the surprise warrant and everything…"_

Elizabeth sighed. "She… the camel, she was closer than the horses," she explained. Then she added, "She was in the camel's cage, um… when I found her." _Elizabeth was referring to Murdoch's wife, the pathologist._ Elizabeth tightened her jaw, _resisting the guilt._

" _Stick as much as possible to the original plan_ ," Elizabeth advised herself. "She can get us to the boundary of the zoo that's undercover of the woods, near the river. Then we can let her go. She'll go back to the zoo on her own… or they'll find her," she said of the camel, explaining, reassuring herself as much as anything else. _Caring for animals had always been her passion, and Elizabeth needed to feel that this one, that this animal beneath them who was saving them right now, she needed to feel that it would be alright – "Do no harm_ ," Elizabeth reminded herself of the physician's oath, finding her life-path had led her to be a physician of God's creatures, rather than one of man.

"What did you do with Murdoch's wife?" Malcolm asked her.

"Locked her in a cage in the winter-house," Elizabeth's answer was simple.

"Locked?!" Malcolm screeched, his voice filled with horror and dread, for Malcolm knew _that_ _ **only the BIG CATS had cages with locks!**_

)

Frantic, Julia's screams were outright frantic, William heard them as the big front doors of the winter-house cracked open. _She was in there – she was alive_ , but her voice sounded exhausted, her terrified cries for help were dry and muffled and oddly tinny, somehow.

" _Off to the left side, far down the aisle_ ," he listened for the source of Julia's screams, already in motion down the long central corridor. _Located_ , he ran full out.

Closer, he called out, "Julia!" as loudly as he could, but the panicked rhythm of her screams did not change.

 _And the desperation in those screams threatened to seize his heart…_

"Help! Help! Help me!... Hheeeeellpp! Help!"

He flew around the last corner at the very end of the enclosure, _her cries on the left from there_ , the backside wall of the winter-house on his right. A strange repetitive metallic scratching sound grated into his ears, shrill, reminding of fingernails scraping on a chalkboard, and it sent a repulsive shiver down his spine. Somewhere in his head _he wondered after what it was?_

Arriving, hugely winded, he saw it, so intimidatingly gigantic – the Tiger.

 _No denying it, IT WAS A TIGER!_

All around the Tiger on the cement floor, his brain screamed it to himself – _"NOT blood, not Julia's blood, it's water, just water," a sheet of puddled covered the whole cement floor of the cage, a great deal of water had been spilled and then flooded everywhere_.

"Julia!" he screamed out her name again.

 _He couldn't see her in there, not anywhere_.

 _She answered him! Not just the same frantic call for help, but his name…_

"William!" she screamed.

 _Thank God, she heard him!_

"Julia!" he screamed it out again, and his brain offered up the unfeasible, " _The Tiger ate her. She's inside his stomach."_ And William nearly fell to the ground with the devastation of the thought, before the more rational complaint followed, assuring him, " _No. No. That's impossible!_ "

He looked up in the tree. _Empty._

But then he remembered, _he had noticed IT before,_ _ **IT**_ _was what was making that creepy skin-crawling scratching sound – the Tiger was intensely busy, trying, scratching ceaselessly at something, working at something_ …

 _It was the metal water tub…_

 _The Tiger was trying to flip it back over_.

" _ **Oh my God! Julia's under there!"**_ the grasping screamed terrified fire inside his chest.

)

"Elizabeth! I insist! Stop!" Malcolm was furious by now. "I swear to God, I'll jump off this camel!" he warned.

With a huff, Elizabeth pulled the reins, the camel's weight shifting drastically backward as its head was flung up into the air, and its legs, solid and stiff, pressed forward in front of its motion, finding only sliding in the snow, slips, and trips, and jerks, before all motion, gratefully, ceased.

Malcolm remained seated and considered how far back it was to get to the zoo. _He needed the camel._

"How could you do that?!" he hollered, a part of him absolutely dismayed that Elizabeth would even think of doing such a thing, "In the Tiger cage! You locked her in the Tiger cage!?"

She refused to say it, but Elizabeth was regretting it. _But now there was only one thing to do – keep going!_

"Malcolm, what's done is done!" she yelled back, "I'm sorry, but it's too late. She's probably already dead."

"I can't do that to Murdoch – Julia Ogden is the woman he loves more than anything in world – she's the mother of his child, for Christ's sake! She's pregnant!" he shook his head, _it was truly unthinkable_.

He leaned forward into Elizabeth's body and swung his leg behind himself, jumping down – _incredibly far down_ – to the ground. "I'm going back," he said, his teeth gritted tight. He tugged at the ropes holding the bags. "I want the camel. You said you wanted her to go back to the zoo anyway," he tried to sound rational.

"I think you're being idiotic," she said. But… she dismounted.

She gave Malcolm a leg-up onto the camel. "There's nothing you can do anyway," she argued.

"I'll get the Tranq!" he yelled, his legs flailing and kicking at the camel's sides, the little stick flapping wildly about against its shoulder, the net result of all his crazed efforts to urge the camel to hurry yielding a mere departure speed of about four miles per hour.

)

Terror zapping William's heart with a strange electrical buzzing, panting and puffing, _trying to simultaneously think faster and to slow himself down,_ he stood on the other side of the locked Tiger-cage door. Julia had stopped her screaming, the only sound cramming into his ears now was the teeth-shearing scraping of the Tiger's claws along the metal of the upside-down water tub. The Tiger seemed unable to flip the tub over. There were stripes of rub marks all over the cement floor, carved into the shiny, streaked pool of water dumped on the ground. _He did not have time to marvel at how brilliant Julia had been to think of such a thing, dumping out the water and using the tub to hide under. It reminded of a turtle's shell…_

" _Locked, the cage is locked,"_ William plainly stated the problem to himself. _"Elizabeth would make sure they kept the key close for emergencies,"_ William's brain told him.

He searched along all the edges of the cage door. _"Hurry, William_!" his inner-that voice coached.

No key to be found right by the cage door, he remembered the east-facing wall of the entire winter-house building made the _other side_ of the corridor he was standing in, and William turned around to search the ledge – _there was a wooden ledge,_ (running horizontally all along the wall, at the boundary between the wooden part of the wall from the floor up to about five-feet, up to the ledge, and above the ledge there were the glass walls, secured every two-feet in concrete casings, the glass protected by cage-like iron bars).

 _There were things on that ledge._

" _ **The key!"**_ hanging from a hook.

 _He had the key!_

"Julia!" he yelled the good news loudly, "I have the key!"

"William!" he heard her reply from under the water tub.

For a moment he looked down into his hands, one clutched the key, the other the Tranq. gun.

"Julia," he called out, "I also have the tranquilizer gun. I can shoot him…"

And William's exacting brain raced forward comparing two scenarios – _**inside**_ _the cage to shoot the Tiger with the gun, or_ _ **outside**_ _of the cage to shoot the gun…_

Then Julia's voice pulled at him. _She sounded so calm, so smart…_

"Think like a horse's hock, William…" Julia remembered his time as a ranch-hand – _William knew horses well._ "Aim above the hock, towards the back section, high enough to land the dart where muscle begins to turn into tendon," she instructed, thinking that point on the Tiger's body was his best shot at hitting a vein.

He had decided it was better NOT to be in the cage, where the Tiger could turn on him, having had envisioned that, if it did, then he would not be able to shoot the dart into the Tiger's back leg, like Julia had just advised. _He would stay outside for now. Shoot from out here._

William shoved the key in the lock and turned it, opening the lock. He would ONLY need to open the latch now, to get in.

He stayed outside of the cage. Moved over, stealthy, to line himself up with the backend of the Tiger as it scratched and clawed at the upside-down water tub, William noticing in his brain's background, that the Tiger was doing so with a bit less vim and vigor. " _It was becoming bored with the game,_ " he felt a small sense of reassurance.

William's arms between two separate bars, both hands on the gun reaching into the cage, he readied to shoot. " _Aim, settle, feel the ground under your feet,"_ he coached himself, " _between the heartbeats…"_

 _Thwapp!_ The dart landed on target, stuck in, the feathery-ends vibrating with the absorbed inertia of the sudden halt, the dart stuck and held into the Tiger's flesh!

"Got it!" William announced.

 _And time seemed to stand still as what was expected and what actually occurring engaged in battle._

" _The Tiger should have fallen down! It should have fallen down!"_ William's confused and angry brain screamed inside his head, trying to make reality twist to his will.

But instead, the wild beast roared! And it leaped! And it spun!

 _If anything, it was MORE crazed now!_

The Tiger turned back to the upside-down water tub with a renewed vengeance, panicked with rage, it ripped at the metal shield blocking it from its prey. Underneath it, Julia held on to the edges with all her might, but the Tiger furiously dug at it and pushed it, hard, pounding its full weight at the tub, with Julia scrambling underneath it as the tub was shoved into motion, scraping and sliding, fast, amazingly fast, all around the cage…

The sound of the sudden impact rang, metal-into-metal clash, as the tub crashed into the bars of the farthest wall of the cage, and an edge tilted, lifted off of the floor, with the momentum.

 _William saw her, under there! Saw her blue skirt!_ Like the soft underbelly, so vulnerable, so close to those sharp, long, deadly claws, for just that tiny second, before the tub re-centered and landed with its whole circumference flat once again down onto the ground.

The Tiger was smart, cunning…

 _The Tiger had seen the opportunity too!_ William was certain of it!

And he was already inside the cage.

He threw the empty Tranq. gun at the Tiger's head, aiming for its eye.

Whack! It hit just right, the sound trumpeting the successful contact with the bone above the eye-socket.

"Julia," he heard his own breathless voice, "It's not going down!" he yelled.

Such conflict in every cell of his body as the Tiger turned to face him. _"Yes!" it had stopped trying to get Julia!_ And too, that strange, graying-edged dizziness, as William's eyes looked into the eyes of the Tiger.

 _He needed to distract it until the drug got into its bloodstream_! The plan arrived in his head a split second after he had already done it.

William kept his eyes on that Tiger, and he began to back up. "It's taking too long," he wasn't sure he had said it loud enough for Julia to hear him.

"Maybe it was dosed for a smaller animal?" she yelled out from still under the tub.

The Tiger matched William's speed exactly, the fiercely harrowing beast slinking forward as William backed up, so that the focus, the distance between their eyes, never changed. William swore, even their breaths occurred in synchrony.

He remembered that the tree was behind him. _Close now…_

 _Lumberjack instincts and skills,_ and he was already at the top of the tree, _and he knew he had turned his back on the Tiger, and so it had chased him, and it was even closer to him now than it had been before, and he had reached the end of the tree, and there was nowhere else to go..._

 _He could jump down,_ the suggestion sounded too late, for he had already made a better choice.

From the very top of the tree, William jumped with all his might – _Up! Up and out_! One of the bars up on the ceiling, the target he reached for… _"Got it!"_ there was a glory in the feeling of his fingers closing tight and secure around the solid, hard, cold iron of the bar. The rest of his body soared forward with the original trajectory before being veered by his having had grabbed hold of the bar, and as William hit the edge of his swing, and he held with everything he had to withstand the jarring, his body began to swing back, and he imagined the Tiger waiting there in the tree behind him, and for the first time, in a long, long time, he prayed to God, he prayed that his foot, or that his leg, would be out of the reach of the Tiger.

His body swung forward once more, this oscillation with less speed, it would be a smaller swing, and he felt a flood of ecstasy, _for he had made it. He was safe_. And as fast as he could, William swung his hand forward to grab another ceiling bar, and then another, walking them like monkey-bars further and further from the jumping point.

 _Safe now, definitely safe_ , his body still dangling, swaying, slower and slower, William glanced back behind him to see the Tiger at the end of the tree. He blew the pressure out through his pursed lips, and he remembered Julia was down there.

"Julia!" he alerted. "Do you think you can make it to the door?" he asked.

She had not dared to lift the bottom of the tub, but now she did. _My God! The sight!_ William hanging from the ceiling, a man-eating Tiger readying to leap for him from the very, very edge of the branch at the top of the tree… _She needed to warn him!_

"William!" the emotion in her scream sent a jolt of terror through him, "He's going to pounce!"

She saw William look back...

At first, it made no sense, no sense at all, for he swung backwards, CLOSER to the Tiger…

But that backwards swing was William setting up to leap again, targeting a ceiling bar even further from the tree.

" _Tink,_ " the tiny sound of William's wedding-ring clinking into the metal of the bar – _He had made it!_

 _ **And, My God, was that Tiger frustrated now!**_

It was amazing how fast the Tiger climbed down from the tree and centered below William's dangling body.

Julia watched as…

And William looked down, and watched as…

The Tiger's eyes, his whole humungous head, swayed back-and-forth, following William's subtle rocking motion up above him…

All three of them were calculating – _Could he leap that high?_

The crouch, the tail, quick, rapid flicks, the ears plastered back, sleekly-flat, to the Tiger's head…

 _Impending,_ William rocked his body back, bent in half, _trapeze-artist in the sky_ , and then swung his legs forward full force to try to catch his toes on a ceiling bar…

The Tiger's leap came…

William pulled himself as tight to the ceiling as he could…

 _Amazing the silence…_

The Tiger's feet were back down on the ground.

" _He missed!"_ William's brain celebrated, _"I'm high enough."_ But William didn't see, the next crouch happened so quickly.

The Tiger had learned, his next leap would be higher.

"William!" Julia's startling cry tensed all his muscles.

Her panic hitting his ears at the same time as…

 _The slashing, slicing, splitting, cutting sting through the flesh of his backside_ , announced with William's lacerating scream, followed by the tearing _"RIP"_ of his winter coat from around his shoulders, as the weight of the Tiger pulled his toes off of the bar, and the bottom half of his coat ripped, shredding into long strips, as the Tiger's claws snagged into the fabric, having hung its full weight, for just that miniscule tick of a second, before the seams of the coat's stitches gave way, and the massive Tiger dropped back down to the floor, its landing, noiseless, with the Tiger's feline agility.

He had gotten a piece of the prey now. The Tiger smelled blood.

Julia, out from under the water tub, tranquilizer gun picked up from the floor and in her hand, only a weapon to throw now – _barely a butter-knife for a gunfight – much like her scissors against Jack-the-Ripper-Scanlon,_ she threw it as hard as she could at the Tiger, the Tiger that was circling, lower and lower, below William, so cunning – _it would use centripetal force to increase its reach for this next pounce_. And, in the center of that circle, she saw _William's hat – his homburg, she loved that hat so much, she loved him so much,_ and, so slowly, as if they were a strange trail of red-dropped snowflakes – his blood, a little drop, then another, then another, of William's blood, dripped down from above, and landed with an inaudible 'plop,' 'plop,' 'plop,' " _blood-spatter_ " on the floor.

And all of the air in the world sucked away…

The thump of the Tiger's ribs taking the hit of the tiny Tranq. gun.

And the Tiger's head turning in the direction of the nuisance.

Julia's motion, frozen in place, her dangling, rebellious curls still swinging forward softly around her face.

"Julia RUN!" _William's voice, begging, pleading, screaming_ , shattered the spell.

Lightning bolt speed, _never in her life so fast_ , the metal scraping of the water tub against the cement of the floor, she dove, dove under that tortoise shell, dove frantically for cover.

 _Her blue skirts did not make it under._

So quickly, the Tiger's claws ripped and pulled at her skirt, the force of the pull slamming her body into the wall of the tub, slamming the tub into the Tiger.

Rocket-speed, William monkey-barred across the ceiling…

 _Over the Tiger._

He didn't think, didn't decide.

"Julia! Go for the door – NOW!" his orders, so stark, so compulsory that she didn't think twice.

The tub, up and over with a metallic 'clang.'

Bolting. Bolting for the door, out of the corner of her eye, the sight so unfathomable, William falling from the sky, so fast, he dropped. _He was falling ONTO the Tiger. William was attacking the Tiger! William – just a man!_ Halfway to the door, she heard the sound behind her, of William landing and the air blasting out of the Tiger's lungs, a growly groan with the surprise, with the shear physical compression in its lungs, as the Tiger collapsed under the gravity of the force of William's weight pounding down onto its back.

A grunt…

 _William's the Tiger's…?_

And then, so odd, Malcolm Lamb at the cage door, opening it for her. And then, she heard the whirlwind swirling – she did! She did! The wind of it, she heard the wild spinning behind her as it began.

She was out, the slam of the metal behind her as Lamb closed the cage door, and she turned to see.

To see the man she loved, more than life itself, locked in a spiraling battle with a man-eating Tiger, William mounted up on its back, hugging tight, his arms around its neck, his legs around its abdomen, and the Tiger spun – crazed and insane and furious, so fast, so fast they were a blur, William a black stripe above the Tiger's more orangy one.

Malcolm Lamb said to her, "The tranq-dart is in?"

"Yes!" she fought the tears, the horror, the collapse.

"He needs more time," Lamb seemed so rational.

They watched, helpless, through the bars of the cage, the Tiger as much yowling as growling, spinning, turning, swiping, trying desperately to get either its mouth or its claws into William, William strategically implanted in the tiny, tiny safe-spot up on the Tiger's back, a whirling tornado of stripes of jungle-Tiger and man.

Lamb knew the zoo had one in here, _a lion-tamer's pole_. He looked to the ledge behind them. _It was there!_

Exactly where it should be, the long wooden lion-tamer's-pole with a neck-collar snagging rope at one end, tucked into its storage hooks under the ledge.

"Hurry! Over here!" Lamb yelled.

Long pole in hand, they both looked back into the cage. The spinning tirade was slowing.

"We'll have to get it around the Tiger's neck, HOPE it doesn't catch on Murdoch!" Lamb offered the plan, named the challenge, for William's arms were squeezed tight around the Tiger's neck, and William had planted his face down into the fur.

" _It seemed possible,"_ Julia's brain thought, trying to picture it working in her mind, _the rope sliding over the Tiger's head and then around its furry, thick neck, then pulling to a skin-tight closing of the snag-rope so that William was not trapped inside the loop. "It seemed possible."_

Lamb stepped back against the winter-building wall behind him, brought the rope-end of the long pole high up in the air, then fit it in between two of the cage bars and then lowered the rope-end back down onto the cement floor inside the cage. He stepped forward, bringing the pole deeper into the cage, and then he put one arm through one space in the bars and the other through a different space so that he could grasp and steer the pole accurately inside the cage. With enough space for Julia to fit between his chest and the bars, Lamb instructed, "Step in front of me," and Julia put each of her arms through the bars to take hold of the pole behind Lamb's grasp, and then she planted her body as close to the cage bars as she could.

Unfortunately, the pole's reach across the cage towards the striped Tiger-William twister looked barely long enough to make it. _But, when the rope-end of the pole was lifted up off of the floor changing the pole's angle, making straight, parallel to the floor…?_

"You control the height," Lamb said, his hands further down the pole than Julia's, "Let me steer it. I control how deep into the cage." His final instruction, he added the obvious, "And when it catches it's going to jerk hard, so hold on for dear life!"

The concentration switched, one-hundred percent into the whirlwind, into the cage.

Like trying to hook a Great-White-Shark on a rampage, they fished for the catch of their lives, the long, long pole, Malcolm Lamb working to sync the swinging loop of the rope out there with the rhythm of the spin…

 _up, up, Up, UP_ – _**OUT!**_

Out and catch!

SLAM!

With unbearable torqueing force, the pole instantly was yanked out of their hands.

"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat…" the end of the pole they had been holding walloped across the bars of the cage… Suddenly catching between two of the bars after a corner – the end of the pole stuck in the gap tight.

The immediate, abrupt STOP flinging the Tiger and William into a fishtailing, high-flying tumble. William lighter, higher, was thrown further, for the Tiger's neck was limited to the length of the pole in how far it could go, the pole held solidly in the bars of the cage wall, stopping the Tiger's head in place. Then, slowly, the Tiger's head, his whole body, slipped down to the floor, laying the Tiger flat out.

For a second, the thought flashed, " _It broke its neck – the Tiger's dead!_ " before Julia's focus found William.

William was moving! Up on his hands and knees…!

William tried to stand, _SO INCREDIBLY DIZZY._

With his first attempt, William wobbled so violently that he flung himself another five feet sideways before he fell, landing with a thud – _down again_. He had no idea where he was, where the Tiger was. His brain said a word… he tried to stand again. _"The Door?"_ the word, William fell – _down again_.

"William!" Julia's voice, "Over here! _"_ she had the cage door opened.

He tried to stand, to go again. She oriented him, her voice the rope he clung to, he moved towards her.

The Tiger stirred, at first unnoticed.

Pure luck, the Tiger moved away from the corner of the cage that held the pole in place, and the sound of the far-end of the pole dragging over the cement, alerted…!

 _The Tiger was free!_

"William!" Julia screamed again.

But the Tiger too, was incredibly dizzy. And the Tiger, too, tilted to the side when it tried to stand, wobbling with a heavy thud back down to the ground.

An odd, moving-floor-in-a-funhouse-like race ensued – William shooting for the door, albeit along a teetering, serpentining, up again-down again trajectory, and behind him, the Tiger taking up tottering chase, following close on William's tail, in its own staggering, drunken, zig-zaggy, butterfly-like path.

Julia jerked free of Malcolm's arms holding her back, running into the Tiger's cage.

"William!" she caught his latest stagger, caught him in her arms.

And he was in her grasp. He never felt safer in his life.

"Julia," he said, woozy.

"I've got you!" she hollered, her husband heavy, she pulled, guided, struggling for the door.

A wobble, they remained on their feet, the Tiger had just missed, dropped sideways, falling again, off in their periphery. _They would make it!_

Lamb grabbed the detective the last three feet from out.

 _They were out!_

 _They were out!_

Lamb slammed the door closed, the sound of slamming metal like the crash of cymbals at the end of the symphony.

 _They were out! They were out!_

 _He was alive! She was alive! They would be alright!_ Euphoria flared.

Tears filled Julia's eyes as she looked into William's face, the miracle of his survival, his stunning bravery, entirely overwhelming, the tidal wave of love hitting her. "William," she squeaked, and embraced him so intensely that air gushed out of his chest.

"William Murdoch, you are unbelievable!" she declared, her sniffles with the words in his ear. "You tackled a Tiger, William! A TIGER! To save me…"

Lamb added, "Never in all my days!" shaking his head with astonishment.

"But, you're injured, William," Julia's voice, he noticed now, reduced to a hoarse whisper, for her vocal cords had been strained with all her screaming for help.

Not caught-up yet, dazed, so out-of-breath, William half-wondered, "Julia, you're alright?! And Mary… the baby, is the baby…?"

"Yes, William yes. The baby, me – we're both alright. You saved us William!" she declared it again, "You saved us."

The major terror confronting him alleviated, he felt a bit better. _And then the scorching sting screamed in agony in his backside,_ with reality coming into focus, somehow, with Julia's reminder, and he remembered, _he had been hurt – the Tiger, the Tiger had scratched him._ Incongruous, William reached back remembering _hearing, feeling, his coat ripping away, and he grabbed the shredded ends and stared at them, puzzled._

 _Wham…!_ William was instantly overtaken with nausea, gurgling upward so quickly that he panicked, the disgusting retch of it hurling his body forward, William heaving Julia aside to fly out of her arms and bend in half and vomit, hugely vomit, before he had the slightest inkling of what was happening.

Malcolm Lamb said, "All that spinning made him sick – dizzy…"

"Yes," William heard Julia reply, as he stayed low, keeping his face closer to floor, and the putrid sight of his own vomit lay there before him, and he tried to catch his breath, panting and sweating, and her voice, _Julia's voice_ , her presence, back there walloped him as he thought, _"Julia's alright! Not killed by the Tiger…"_ And then another wave of puking erupted and the liquidy stench spewed all over the floor once more.

From somewhere else the question came, William's vomiting at a pause, and he waited for the next wave to come, " _Malcolm Lamb's here? Didn't he escape?"_

Back behind him, Julia held a hand to his shoulder. As she glanced back, she saw his wounds, through the rips in his clothing, the Tiger scratch was deep into William's flesh. There were at least three, long, sliced, parallel gashes starting at his lumbar region, and running down into his gluteus. " _He'll need stitches,_ " she told herself, _"lots of stitches._ " And she wondered after her medical bag.

She turned to Malcolm Lamb. "We need to get him to Dr. Mole's surgery," she said.

William stood upright and took a deep breath, all eyes turning to see if he was alright, "Where's my hat?" he asked, still wobbly on his legs and disoriented. Gratefully, the vomiting seemed to have run its course.

"Your precious hat's in the cage, William," Julia answered him, finding pure joy in the sensation of feeling herself giggling.

Suddenly, they all remembered the Tiger, the three of them rushing to turn to see.

The collar of the tamer's pole was still snug around the Tiger's neck, the winded beast standing and staring, glassy-eyed and dazed, out in their general direction. The Tiger took a step, dragging the pole with him. He seemed to be surprised by the pole's presence, taking another jerky sideways step trying to get away from it.

It was thoroughly unexpected, William making a joke.

William's chuckle made the other two look…

And then William glanced at her, _one of those lovely sideways glances he gave her sometimes_ , and the sides of his mouth pinched tight just a bit as he tried not to smile. "I must say" he started, _and he adored the feeling of Julia's eyes on him,_ "that really changes my opinion of that vaudeville joke… the one about why you would need an 11-foot pole…"

And he turned to look at her, and William's face lit-up as he watched her giant smile growing.

"I remember it," Julia said, nodding, and she rushed for the punchline, getting it out between her bubbles of laughter, "For the things you can't reach, William… with your 10-foot pole?"

And the two of them shared that moment.

With Malcolm Lamb looking-on, _not quite getting why it was so funny_ , and he felt a strange yearning, and he remembered Elizabeth with a jolt. And right then, as the laughter dwindled, Malcolm decided that _he had to get away – that he had to try to catch up to her – that he loved her – that it had not been a mistake to choose her._

The Murdoch's, arm-in-arm, turned back to consider the Tiger in the cage.

"I think the tranquilizer is taking effect," Julia said.

"Mm," Malcolm quickly agreed.

The Tiger swayed, and then he slowly laid down on the floor. He held his head up and panted, and his head seemed so very heavy, and slowly, slowly, he dropped his chin down towards the floor. And suddenly he jerked it back up, but almost immediately it began to sink slowly down again, until it touched to the cement floor, and then the Tiger rolled to his side and laid flat out, his sides slowly moving up and down with his shallow breaths.

 _And William realized Lamb had stepped away._

 _And he remembered he needed to arrest him for the murder of Nicholas Mole!_

And he turned around to see if Lamb was behind them, and the twisting of his lower body screamed the unbearable pain from the Tiger scratches into the forefront again, and he howled-out with the agony…

"William!" Julia reached to support him, _guilt for forgetting how badly hurt he was slamming into her chest,_ "I'm so sorry," she exclaimed. Her doctor brain engaged, and she began to come up with a plan.

Expecting Lamb to be there, Julia instructed, "We need to get him to Dr. Mole's surgery!" And then she darted her eyes all around, surprised that Lamb wasn't there.

William explained, "He confessed to murdering Elizabeth's husband. He escaped with her. I need to arrest him," and William, for the briefest second, started to run after him. But, it only took one step for him to stop.

Julia's heart broke with the look he gave her.

"You can't, William," she answered, telling him what he already knew.

"Do you think you can make it all the way to the surgery?" she asked him, bringing his arm up over her shoulders for him. Julia reminded herself to keep her own arm high on his back, above the wounds, as she wrapped an arm around him and they began to walk.

Julia helped William down the long aisleway of the winter-house. Once they got to the big front doors of the building, William remembered Brian's wheelbarrow, that he had used for feeding the animals.

"It could work as a makeshift gurney," Julia figured. Perfect, the wheelbarrow was filled with hay, and William could lay himself across it on his stomach, thus keeping the Tiger-claw scratches from coming into contact with anything.

The moment they stepped out of the winter-house, Julia felt the blast of cold waft up her leg. It was not only William who had had the Tiger gash and rip his clothing, she had too, when the Tiger had caught her skirts, left sticking out on the ground outside of the water tub. The memory flashed, _horrifying, being slammed into the tub wall with the force of the Tiger's pull._ She pushed the invasive memory away, _she had to help William now._

Julia would never admit it, but, _through the snow_ , she was finding it very difficult to push the loaded wheelbarrow. _Her arms were killing her_. And, one by one, she was becoming more and more conscious of her own injuries. _She had scraped her knees to hamburger_ , she could tell by the wind-sucking sting each time she bent her knees, and each time the fabric of her skirt whooshed across them. The memory of the ordeal flashed again, _her under the tub, "funny how there was that musty, disgusting, scent_ _this time,"_ as she remembered _being slid and shoved all over the cage under the water tub, and the awful shrill, screeching sound surrounding all sides from the metallic bottom edges scraping on the cement, and the Tiger's skin-curdling claws scratching above her, every molecule of her effort to stay under that tub as it flew around the cage, her knees, her elbows…_ she remembered the stinging pain in her elbows now _, too…_ She shoved the thoughts away again. " _Minor, compared to William's wounds,"_ she berated herself into pushing on, finding the urgency she needed to keep going.

William talked to her as they went, _no surprise, he wanted to talk about the case._ Julia encouraged him, thinking it would help him better tolerate the pain. Besides, she was greatly intrigued anyway.

He filled her in on what he had learned since he left her in the winter-house collecting maggot and blood samples, "The first Body-Dumper victim was Dr. Adam Restell…"

"The escaped abortion doctor?!" Julia exclaimed.

"His escape from the Don Jail was a ruse. He was killed that night," William explained, going on, "Restell and Elizabeth had been having an affair and Elizabeth's husband killed Restell when he caught them together that night. It was Nicholas Mole who dumped Adam Restell's body at our Farm…"

Julia wanted to swipe the hair out of her face, but could not while keeping going, feeling winded, she tried to mask her strain, "And my University class found it the next day?"

"Yes," William went on, "Are you alright, Julia?" he asked, having detected her distress.

"Yes, William," she decided to admit, "It's just a bit more difficult than I thought. How did Malcolm Lamb know Elizabeth Mole's husband had killed Dr. Restell?" she wisely distracted her husband back to the case.

William reached up and rubbed at his brow, fighting with his manly urges to switch their roles, realizing it was futile at this point. He took a deep breath, blew out some of the pressure, and focused on the story of the case, "Well, then Nicholas Mole taunted… terrorized his wife, after that…" At that point in the telling, William added, "Julia, Nicholas Mole was one of those despicable brutes that beats their wives…"

"I see," Julia replied, trying so very hard to be strong. William had gone on telling, but _her heart had felt a pang, the WAY William had said it touching her,_ like playing just the right note in a song, it affected her on a deeper, unconscious level, _knowing him, knowing William FELT empathy, somehow, with what Elizabeth Mole had gone through at the hands of her abusive husband._ Her psychiatry mind wanted to pursue it further, but in the midst of everything, the thoughts faded away.

Her balance bobbled!

She corrected, " _tripped on the torn skirt_ ," the explanation came, the tearing sound behind them, oddly, in both space and time, of a section of her skirt ripping away, the extra-cold air on her skin warning that all the way up to her buttocks, now, was revealed for all to see.

Her husband had gone on, his voice below her, off to the side of the wheelbarrow, "And that's exactly what happened the night Lamb killed Nicholas Mole…"

Julia reiterated in her mind, catching the main points, " _Lamb killed Mole…"_ adding in details, _"…Nicholas Mole the second victim – chopped up… shot in the back of the knee with the dart…"_

"That night, Lamb told Elizabeth that he was in love with her, and she told him that her husband was watching her, and they had to be careful, that her husband had killed Restell, and Nicholas Mole overheard Elizabeth telling Lamb that," William said, "and so Nicholas Mole tried to kill them both, and Lamb stopped him by shooting him with the tranquilizer gun. Lamb said it was self-defense, and I suppose it could be argued that it was. According to Lamb, all that Elizabeth did was help him to get rid of the body. But, it bothers me Julia…"

"Uh-huh," she managed to grunt out, but she could tell her voice gave her away, and so she just put the handles of the wheelbarrow down. "Just for a second," she said. She rubbed at her fingers. _She had so quickly developed bubbly thick blisters, a few of which hurt quite badly because they had already popped…_

"It's too hard, Julia," William worried, finding a grip on the edge of the wheelbarrow and pushing himself up. He grimaced bearing the pain of moving. It was truly excruciating. _Mission accomplished_ , however, he stood up. "We're almost there," he reassured. He put an arm over her shoulder and they began forward again.

William stepped on another piece of her shredded skirt. Again, there was the sound of fabric tearing away. "Sorry," he said.

Julia thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, _"Quite burlesque, now husband, she's quite burlesque, your wife…"_ Her more inquisitive mind intruded…

"William," Julia suddenly wondered, "Didn't you say Lamb escaped with Elizabeth Mole! So, he came back then!?"

"To save us… you, I think…" William answered, "Elizabeth must've told him what she had don…"

It was at that moment that the Inspector appeared on the path.

"Murdoch! Bloody Hell! What happened?!" he declared. _The man's coat was in tatters – he was leaning heavily on his wife. She was a mess too…!_ the Inspector's observations raced faster than his words could express, _"Where's the woman's skirt!?"_

Murdoch turned to show him the scratches, bloody and long and deep, ripped and sliced into his flesh.

And just that second it hit Julia, again. _William had tackled a man-eating Tiger to save her!_ And her eyes filled with tears and she choked up so that, even in her hoarse whispers, she couldn't speak…

The Inspector took Murdoch's other arm. "Well…?" he pushed for an answer as the trio moved forward on the snowy path.

William tried to answer, "I… uh, well, it's a long…"

"William jumped down from the ceiling of the cage to tackle a Tiger to save me, Inspector," she summed it up, she thought.

"A WHAT?!" the Inspector yelled.

And William said, nonchalantly, "It seems Elizabeth Mole locked our coroner, my wife…" but his nonchalance disappeared as he felt a surge of anger rising inside of him _,_ "in a cage with a Tiger, sir. With a huge TIGER! And, if Elizabeth Mole had NOT escaped, with Lamb… again…" his teeth gritted tight, and he warned himself to calm down, and then he sighed. _He wanted to rub his brow, but both of his arms were wrapped around his helpers,_ "Malcolm Lamb has managed to escape – TWICE, sir," William growled, "And, if Elizabeth Mole was here, I suppose I would need to add attempted murder to her other charges… uh, when I arrest her…. maybe someday." He realized that the Inspector did not know what had happened, and he went back to the beginning to tell the highlights of the story.

Both the Inspector and Julia were filled in by the time they got to the surgery.

"Well, it's always love or money," the Inspector concluded, "I guess this time it was love. Too bad that when Crabtree gets here with the paddy-wagon and the other constables, there won't be anyone to take in."

Julia left the Inspector holding William up, and she opened the backdoor to the surgery ahead of them.

The Inspector's eyes bugged out of his head at the sexy sight of the doctor in her largely-missing and tattered skirt. "Dr. Ogden…" he tried to make his eyes come up off of the woman's curves.

Julia kept her body oriented away from the two men, looking specifically for any operating sheets to use, and she glanced back over her shoulder to follow the Inspector's gaze, _noticing_. She felt the blush flood into her face.

"As you can see, Inspector," Julia tried to balance patience, with teasing the man, _gaining the upper-hand for his loss of self-control, and with her secret happiness that he found her to be so sexually alluring that he couldn't take his eyes off of her,_ and somewhere in her mind she remembered _William_ and she thought to look over, and Julia saw that, _William too, was taking in an eyeful, and her heart trumpeted with joy!_ And she remembered the first time, _naked at the nudist colony_ , and then the second, _with the shapely Elizabeth Mole in her tight rubber suit…_ "William!" she feigned shock.

"Julia," his beautiful brown eyes dashed up to meet hers. He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her.

She failed to completely hide it, her smile.

She put her hands on her hips. "Honestly!" she huffed, "Men!" _Moving on,_ she had found the operating sheets she needed, and she used one of them as a makeshift skirt, folding it up a few times because, _"they were all so big – probably for the larger animals,"_ she reasoned, and she tied the sheet in place.

The Inspector spoke as the group worked to get William prepared and up on the operating table.

"I'm convinced Alderman Lamb didn't know anything about all of this," the Inspector explained, "After talking incessantly to the bloody toff on the phone…" adding, his blood-pressure going up, "And the bloody mayor… The politics of the job, Murdoch, I told you it was all bollocks. You couldn't stomach it…" he felt his face flushed, " _I need a bloody scotch_ ," he thought.

Julia held what was left of William's coat up in front of her. The sight of it spoke volumes. "You need a new winter coat," she said, marveling at the strips of fabric she had just removed from her husband. His maroon scarf was alive and well after the battle, surviving snuggly in its place under his coat. She was grateful, for much like his hat, she quite adored this little accessory of his. She remembered, re-feeling her sadness and torment at the time, _burying her nose in this soft scarf to surround herself with the smell of him, when he was lost, in danger, out there in the world, pretending to be a hobo with George…_

She helped him take off his suit jacket and vest, noting that they each, too, were ruined, the bloodied bottoms of each had been within the grasp of the Tiger when it struck… the tails of his shirt were shredded and blood-soaked, as well, but Julia decided to leave her modest husband that modicum of covering, leaving his shirt and tie on him, " _I can_ _cut the ripped shirt-tails away, that'll do,"_ she told herself, _planning._

He turned his back to her, with the Inspector behind her, and Julia brought William's trousers and underwear down.

"Bloody Hell!" the Inspector whispered the exclamation.

His naked flesh exposed, she could see the lacerations were serious. _It was there though, also, her awareness of how hunky her husband's physique was, and a thought ran through her mind, that she had made similar marks on his backside, on occasion, while in the throes of their more rough, intense, lovemaking._ And she felt _guilty for thinking about such things, considering how severe these cuts into his mortal body were._ There was a sigh.

"Cat scratches can be particularly troublesome," she announced to the room, "I'm sure, even more so, when the cat is…" she shook her head, _for it was still so unbelievable_ , "a Tiger." She imagined the various wound flushing treatments she could use as she continued, "They will need to be cleaned well," she explained. Her professional tone helped William feel better, the Inspector too. "If I were in my morgue, I'd apply some of my mold extract…" she gestured for William to climb up on the table…

The Inspector remained standing aside, fighting with whether or not the man would want his help while so… _exposed_ …

William managed to climb up, keeping his front-side facing away from view, _his main concern, it turned out…_

Julia had gone on, "That mold extract I used on the meathook wound…," she covered William's legs with an operating sheet,and using the question to asses William's state, she asked, "Do you remember, William? You took it with you, when you went to Winnipeg…?"

And he answered her, "Mmm…"

And she remembered _he had lied to her back then – "withheld the truth" from her_ , she corrected, _about his going to stay with Ettie Weston…_ and then the start of the whole, long, meatpacking-case saga started to unfold in her mind, and she pushed it all away, " _No time now_ ," and she covered William's upper back and shoulders with another operating sheet, and she began to search the surgery for what she needed.

 _It would sting, but there was alcohol…_

 _Oh, Julia was so impressed!_ "She has Procaine!" Julia exclaimed. William would appreciate this, she thought, wanting to keep him feeling as at ease as possible, so she added, "Procaine is a synthetic derivative of cocaine. We can use it to locally anesthetize the area. They call it 'novocaine' – meaning "new – caine." It's the new cocaine!" Julia proclaimed, her back to them as she worked with all the little medical vials. "A German surgeon, Braun, has used it with great success…" she smiled and turned to face the two men, a syringe and needle prepared, raised high and proud…

 _And downright disturbingly, SCARY-looking, too._

William Murdoch swallowed, _the reality of what it was that he was about to go through dawning on him._

"William," her voice had a playful scolding tone, "It's just a little needle," she told him, keeping the little detail that it would require _many, many, different little pricks into his flesh around each of the long extensive Tiger-claw slices_ to herself.

With a glance into the Inspector's eyes, she brought her tray over to the bottom half of the operating table.

"Would you mind assisting, Inspector," she asked, as casually as she could manage. _Inspector Brackenreid looked a bit pale and queasy_ , she warned herself, _he could feint away_. _"Hope he falls away from the body",_ Julia thought, not even noticing the change in her mind _to 'body,' from 'her husband,' or 'William,' or 'the love of her life, the father of her child – her children,'_ the subtle reminder of ' _her being pregnant'_ had snuck in however, seeming " _oddly out of place_ ," with her other thoughts _, like flushing the top of the wounds downward in smooth, even strokes, and preparing herself to ignore the patient's reaction to the stinging pain he would feel… and which of the four gashes to suture first…_ her role as doctor becoming wholeheartedly incorporated.

"Of course, Dr. Ogden," the Inspector replied, stepping forward, telling himself _not to look_ at the terrifyingly unsettling slashes in his detective's behind.

Out of nowhere, Julia giggled. "Sorry gentlemen," she said. "I uh, I just remembered stitching-up William… um, his other ' _cheek_ ," she glanced up at the Inspector, checking to see if he understood her pun. "Not so long ago, the good Detective Murdoch here…" she went back to suturing, "went and got himself bit in the derriere by a guard dog – I'm sure you remember, when gallantly saving Constable Crabtree, as I remember it." She giggled again, "That time it was his other cheek. Get it…? One side, the dog, he turned the " _other cheek,_ " and now it's the cat…" she waited, receiving nothing, "It's funny…" She looked to each of the men, the Inspector peering back only mild annoyance… William's face out of her line of sight, but then…

William sighed.

And, of course, that only made her giggle more. "It must be something about you serious detective-types, this lack of a sense of humor," she reassured herself the fault lay with them, not herself, her eyes back down on the cheek in question.

Eventually, with the suturing halfway done, Brackenreid was feeling more in charge of his faculties, and his mind moved back to the case. "So, they both escaped, then?" his question felt unexpected.

Grateful for it, however, William jumped at the chance to discuss it instead of the medical event happening to him as he lay there, _tolerating_ , and intermittently _worrying about how badly this latest injury would affect his everyday life._ "Yes…" he cleared his throat, "Yes, sir. At first the two of them together, Elizabeth warning me I needed to save Julia in the winter-house," he rushed passed the traumatic part, to the facts, "They had a camel, I think it was a camel… some suitcases. Went the opposite way than I did…"

"Crabtree should be here soon. We'll track them," the Inspector said assuredly, knowing _to prepare the scissors for the doctor,_ having learned the routine of the work at hand.

Julia added, "Malcolm Lamb came back, Inspector. To be honest, that amazes me. He had made it. He was free, with the woman he loved. And he risked it all to come back…" She cut the suture and paused. "It looks good," she assessed aloud. A deep breath, _still more to go_ , she went back to her thoughts on the case, "William figures Elizabeth Mole must have told Lamb what she had done…" Julia hesitated, _surprised it would take effort to say it again,_ "um, locking me in a cage with a Tiger. And he came back. There's something to be said about the man in that."

"Malcolm Lamb always impressed me as a good man," the Inspector agreed. "A bit like your husband, I'd say, doctor," he went on, "Tenacious with a case, dog with a bone, if you know what I mean. Not slow as molasses though…" Brackenreid decided to keep the next part to himself, about _how much smarter Murdoch was than Detective Lamb, smarter than anyone he knew, actually_ , he added. His mind began to replay a myriad of memories, each more astounding than the one before it, _Murdoch figuring out there was a boy inside a rampaging automaton, and that the 'alien spaceship' was really an air-balloon warship, and that there was rocket aimed at New York City…_

' _ **CRree-eek'**_

 _There was a sound at the backdoor_!

Everybody jumping a bit…

 _Well, except Julia – incredibly well-trained to have steady hands when working on a patient._

Elizabeth Mole burst through the doorway.

She was out of breath, her chest heaving. And she had a desperate expression appealing on her face. "I came for the Tiger!" she announced.

Her eyes dropped down to see what Dr. Ogden was working on, a part of her brain sending her the message that _the woman stitching up the man on the table had survived,_ in the same instance that she determined that it was the detective down on the operating table, _his quite noticeably chiseled buttocks, slashed all to hell! – "YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT!_ Elizabeth's conscience castigated her. And her knees collapsed with the weight of her guilt and her remorse.

"I'm sorry," Elizabeth pleaded, "So sorry!" her eyes rose to meet Julia's, "Malcolm was right – it was unconscionable, what I did to you…" _Elizabeth expected to find hate there – anger. Breathtaking, the softness in her victim's eyes instead, so beautiful, something so unexperienced in her whole lifetime, tenderness, tenderness in response to behaving horridly,_ Elizabeth began to cry. "Please. Please forgive me. I was… I was, terrified. Malcolm, Malcolm had rushed off to get… he was going to… I couldn't let you stop us! I… I should never, but I panicked…"

 _Although Julia felt for the woman, she found herself becoming annoyed._

From flat out on his stomach on the operating table, William said, "Dr. Elizabeth Mole, I arrest you for aiding and abetting a murderer…" _he wasn't going to let this one get away_. "Inspector?" he requested, "Could you?"

"Oh!" William remembered, "And for the attempted murder of my wife," he added, "That too," his head changing sides as the Inspector put the surgical instrument in his hand down onto the doctor's tray and he moved towards Elizabeth Mole standing over by the backdoor.

Elizabeth sniffled, her red, wrinkled face attesting to her sincerity. Her eyes looked into the Inspector's – _so frightened._

 _Brackenreid worried she would run…_

And William suddenly remembered _she had said she came for the Tiger_ … because he had been trying to work out _why in the world she would be back here…_

"You said you came back for the Tiger?" the detective asked.

And Brackenreid watched Elizabeth Mole's expression change, so drastically, fear, dread, mixed in with an immense purpose, all at one showing on her face….

Elizabeth felt the twinge of guilt in her own voice as she asked, "Did you kill it?" And her heart _prayed to all the world that they had not, because she loved the Tiger, as she loved all innocent creatures, and if they had killed it, that, too, would be on her conscience till the end of her days._

"No," Julia answered, her eyes back to her husband's sutures, her anger surfacing.

"Tranquilized," William added, "with one of your darts… And, as you can see, he did quite a bit of harm, but he did not kill my wife, nor myself…"

"I'm truly grateful for that!" Elizabeth hurried to declare, "I truly, truly am. But…"

She looked around the room, her eyes seeming to dart about nearly everywhere, Julia's eyes, _not receiving a return glance from the woman_ , the Inspector's, over to the medicine cabinet, down at the horrible, horrible wounds in the detective's rear-end, and back to the medicine cabinet…

She swallowed, so much reality coming down on her so quickly. "How long ago? How long has the Tiger been under?" she seemed dazed as she asked.

"About thirty minutes," Dr. Ogden answered, thinking to herself _to try to take into account, the strange extension of time that seems to happen, when one is in the throes of trying to survive the unsurvivable, and to cope with incredible fear and pain…_

"Why?" Julia added the question, _for this,_ lifting her eyes away from her work. Just before Elizabeth Mole answered her, she thought it, a gasping _**"OF COURSE!"**_ screaming inside her head…

"He needs an antidote," Elizabeth said.

And Julia's brain raced with her thoughts. " _She's the murderer! She's the murderer! Not Lamb! It's not Lamb. William's wrong. It was a false confession. She did it. She shot the dart into the back of her husband's leg – HER. She knew he needed an antidote. She withheld it. She killed him…"_

Elizabeth had gone on, appealing to the Inspector, "If the Tiger doesn't get it, he'll die. Please. I'll confess. I helped Malcolm dispose of the body…"

Julia watched, dumfounded as no one else appeared to have figured it out. She looked over to William. " _William's quick, he'll have caught it as well as me. Let the detective take care of the case, Julia"_ she coached herself, and then she considered, " _He's been through so much, though…_ And the other side of the argument piped-in, _"But, he seems well in control…"_ then reminding herself that _the first thing William did, the very second Elizabeth came in here, unexpectedly returning from her escape, was to announce that he was arresting her…_

"I took the body-parts to your Body Farm," Elizabeth had continued rushing her confession so that they would let her give the Tiger the antidote – _time so important_. "Malcolm told me that that was a big mistake. Of course, he was right, that's obvious now…"

" _Ahh!"_ William's brain jerked with the reemergence of the niggling thought, finally voicing it to someone who could answer it, "Lamb didn't tell you to dump the body there?"

"No. No," Elizabeth said, catching everyone's eyes but Murdoch's, because Murdoch was laid out on the operating table, "No. Um…" her brain yelled at her – " _THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG!"_ Elizabeth stepped towards the medicine cabinet, her eyes now searching the vials for the antidote. She explained what she was doing, that she was not trying to escape again, "The antidote…" with a quick gesture to the Inspector, who nodded, "Um, Malcolm said it was best that he not know where I dumped the body. He found out when the newspapers reported it. I, uh… I…" She found the right vial. "May I?" she asked for permission to prepare the syringe.

The Inspector replied, "I see no reason you can't give the Tiger the antidote… You Murdoch?" he asked his best man.

"I hold no grudge against the Tiger, sir," Murdoch answered.

For his part, Murdoch _HAD caught_ the point that Elizabeth's knowing about the antidote was indicative of her guilt in her husband's murder. But clues were flying about everywhere, and he was working to catch them all. Off on a tangent somewhere inside his brain he also was _worried, in a guilty, hope-Julia-never-finds-out way, about Elizabeth revealing during her confessing that she knew all the details about his boobytraps at the Body Farm because HE had bragged about them to her when he was setting-up the Constabulary protection of the Pink Panther Diamond._ A quick reminder to himself _not to forget to ask Elizabeth about the axe missing from her home,_ he started his question, "So then, why did _YOU_ choose to dump…"

Elizabeth returned to telling all, _well, all she was intending to tell anyway_ , interrupting the detective, "I had figured your Body Farm was a perfect spot to use, because people dump bodies there all the time…"

 _ouch! ( ;_

"…And maybe you wouldn't even notice this one, and Malcolm had said it had to be in the woods, so that animals would scavenge the cut-up pieces, and well…" Elizabeth stopped. _She needed to think about this next part first, decide if it would give away too much?_ She kept her eyes down, preparing the syringe with the correct dose of antidote for the Tiger and thought it through. Decided, she said…

All ears attuned…

"I also thought it was a sort of poetic justice. Nick had…" Unexpectedly a wave of emotions hit her hard, Elizabeth faltering with the whamming of it. Her eyes teared and her voice choked up, and she swallowed, and she went on, croaky…

 _The sound of her squeakiness reminding William of Julia when she was terribly upset, thus pulling at his heartstrings…_

"My bastard husband had dumped Adam there…" she sniffled and swiped at her streaming tears, "He killed him…" her voice raised in pitch as she held her breath avoiding feeling the worst of the pain, "Nick killed him, and he dumped him in that awful place, like garbage. Making a show of it. He knew it would be in all the papers when Adam's body was found, found in ' _Toronto's Favorite Couple's'_ notorious, morbid Body Farm, and he knew that I would know it was Adam, and that he had killed him that night when he caught us together. He used it to punish me, stifle me with his constant terrorizing, like I was locked in his secret cocoon, his secret little prison, simply because I wounded his male pride."

 _Julia, now, felt the tug of the woman's suffering._

Anger temporarily drowned her grief, and Elizabeth's mind cleared with the instilled power the emotion. "Malcolm said it would alert you, Detective Murdoch, using your Body Farm," she heard her own strength back in her voice, "It only made it worse, he said, that I was probably one of the only people you told… err, told about the specific traps you set at your Body Farm, so it might even draw your attention to me specifically…"

" _OH, HOLY CHRI…!"_ William's panic erupted…

Julia felt his muscles tense under her suture. "William…?" she said…

 _So much like how she had said it when she found out he had punched Darcy, and half of William's brain hurled down the path of remembering that humungous fight they had had in the back of the Stationhouse afterwards, and he so much didn't want to ever fight with her like that again, and he had to find some words, just some words to say…_

"William, you told _HER_ about your boobytraps? Your " _super-secret_ ," " _no-one-could-ever-know-the-details,_ " boobytraps?" she queried.

"The axe!" William yelled the incongruous statement into the air, hoping it would save him, the only thing that came to the front of his mind in his panic – _he wrote it down in his little book, he never forgets things he writes down._

He had jerked so much, to say it, that the current stitch Julia was making had been much too large. There was a rather noticeable, frustrated sigh, possibly even a huff. Julia frowned and told herself _she was right to be angry, he had responded to this attractive woman's obvious flirtations. "He had tried to impress the pretty woman… Obviously, he HAD impressed her…"_ Julia complained, "William, stay still," _certain that her astute husband would grasp from her request that she was completely aware of the REASON he had jerked in the first place._

"Murdoch," the Inspector demanded, "Make some sense, man!"

As carefully as he could, trying to in no way to affect Julia's stitching with doing so, or to draw attention to the gesture, William bent his elbow under the operating sheet and rubbed at his brow. He took a deep breath and endeavored to explain the illogical comment, "I searched your home, Elizabeth. You have a woodpile, and a chopping block, but no axe…"

Seeing that there was a connection, the Inspector inserted, "Ahh… And your husband's body was chopped-up to bloody hell, wasn't it…? And, our coroner here…" the Inspector nodded to Dr. Ogden…

She returned the nod.

"Dr. Ogden's postmortem report said that the body had cutmarks consistent _WITH AN AXE_. Was it your axe, Dr. Mole?" the Inspector finished his question.

 _Elizabeth did not like the fact that the Inspector had just used her title to address her rather than her first name. And, the Tiger could be dying at this very moment._ Suddenly a wave of panic hit her. _The axe was so unimportant. Such a waste of time to explain…_

William, thinking to himself, again, that Elizabeth would have known her husband needed the antidote after he had been shot with the tranquilizer dart, and that this might be the clue that turned the case, and that, now, she seemed to be troubled by his questioning her about her axe, and that that might be a further clue pointing her way… _"Maybe it wasn't Malcolm Lamb…?"_

"The axe?" the Inspector pushed, also sensing the woman's hesitation had significance.

"Really, we must hurry to the Tiger, to save him," she checked all of their faces. A sigh announced her helplessness. "Malcolm chopped up the body _…" she would tell it, tell it fast_ , "He was in the infirmary at first, because Nick had beaten him up – me too, by the way," she added, "The hippo went into labor, and Malcolm said all the blood would mask what we were doing, so he chopped up the body in the birthing cage…"

Elizabeth turned to Dr. Ogden and said, "Your samples would have come back positive for human blood, doctor."

"They still will," Julia corrected. Her brain shot a memory of _her standing alone outside of the camel cage, trying to decide whether or not to go in to take the samples while she was alone_. Julia wondered after the thought, " _Perhaps, if she had waited, gone to get William instead, none of this would have happened…"_

Worry in her voice, Elizabeth suddenly asked, "The camel!? Did she come back?" she searched the Inspector's… the doctor's, faces. "Detective?" she asked.

"We don't know," William answered her.

"Malcolm took her, rode her back to save your wife. I hope she's not another innocent casualty of all of this," she fretted with _her responsibilities, her being the one who fought for these animals, her own guilt with the betrayal sickening her_. Her eyes dropped down to the syringe in her hand, " _Time was running out._ "

"Malcolm used the zoo's axe, detective. To chop-up the body after the hippo gave birth…" _So odd, the way the brain multi-tasks,_ for she remembered _that very same hippopotamus stepping on Adam, while they were making love in the hippo paddock, that summer night. "That seemed so long ago_ ," she marveled, and she felt once more the unbearable wave of pain of missing him, missing Adam so very, very much, swell up in her throat. Meanwhile, she had managed to force herself to move on, "I gave my axe away, to the man who finished chopping all the wood for me, after Nick was gone. Nick always chopped the wood. I didn't need it – just gave it away. Can I tell you the rest later?" she asked. "Please. Please can we go to the Tiger now?" she held her eyes firmly to the Inspector's.

"Murdoch?" the Inspector checked with the detective.

"Yes. Fine. Go," William gave. He heard the door open, at that moment remembering, "Inspector!" he alerted…

"Something important by the sound of it, Murdoch?" the Inspector turned back.

"My hat, it's in the cage with the Tiger," William explained.

"Always with the bloody hat, Murdoch," the Inspector teased, shaking his head…

"Oh, and Inspector," Julia figured she might as well, "Could you get my medical bag… um, and my coat." Anger rose inside her again, stiffening her voice, "Elizabeth will know where they are," she added.

The door squeaked on its hinges, almost closed. Julia remembered, thinking it might help them to know, she hollered after them, "Oh! And the Tiger has a lion tamer's pole around his neck…"

 _They would already be running._ They were gone.

William and Julia alone, Julia examined her work on his sutures. She was done, and _the four wounds appeared to be well-mended, even if she did say so herself._ She sighed, thinking it best _not to reveal to William, yet, that the job was completed. "It would be easier for him, being who he was, not to have to talk about this face-to-face_ ," she decided.

"Almost done," she said, breaking the silence. "So, it seems you've lost the axe, detective, as a relevant clue in the case…" _Julia brought up the topic, albeit indirectly, of William's thoughts on Elizabeth being the killer, Elizabeth's axe no longer a clue pointing suspicion her way._

William frowned, unseen, a part of him disappointed that his 'hunch' had been wrong. "Yes," he agreed, "We should still collect the zoo's axe, as evidence, I suppose. It would be helpful if it tested positive for human blood, but that's probably unlikely by now…"

Behind him, Julia pushed herself to be more direct. "William," her use of his first name instead of 'detective' indicating the conversation was switching to more intimate, more personal, "Do you think you might have a preference…? Um, maybe you have a predetermined inclination, I mean, more towards one suspect than the other?" She took a breath, adding, going for blunt, "Perhaps you _WANTED_ the killer to be Lamb?"

There was a pause…

 _She could have kicked herself, for she rescued him from his discomfort_ , adding, "Well, for the second murder anyway…" she rolled her eyes at herself, and then explained, "I think we can agree that the first killer was Nicholas Mole, killing his wife's secret lover – Dr. Restell, then Mole becoming, himself, the second victim in our Body-Dumper case…" she hesitated, feeling she'd dug herself into a mess, unexpectedly feeling a bit embarrassed, she giggled, "Nicholas Mole couldn't have killed himself…"

Relieved, William was quick to add, "Nor chop himself up into little pieces and dump them at our Body Farm, for that matter, either…"

Julia sighed, "Yes, yes of course." She rolled her eyes at herself again, scolding herself in her head, _"Julia Ogden, you are such a chicken!"_

William meandered into more philosophical territory, considering how _surprisingly common it was in double-murder cases to have the killer of the first victim end up being the second victim themselves_. He wondered to himself that _if the public were made more aware of that fact, if it became common knowledge, then it might have the effect of lowering murder rates, acting as a deterrent to committing the first murder in the first place…_

There was a lull, each of them in their own thoughts. While William waxed theoretical on criminal justice, Julia was telling herself that _she would need to steer the topic back to William's avoiding suspecting Elizabeth…_

It was William, however, who interrupted, his ' _dog-with-a-bone'_ nature bringing him back to the case anyway. "As to my preference in suspecting Lamb, the evidence went that way…" he drew her attention, "It was Lamb's _modus operendi_ , chopping up the body into pieces to dispose of them, then his carpentry skills, being in the Don Jail, AND working at this zoo."

"Yes, William. I agree there were reasons, but… well, there were plenty of reasons to suspect Elizabeth Mole too," she argued. She felt herself becoming impatient. She decided she wanted to be able to see his face. "All finished, William," she said. She busied herself with putting away the instruments and the tray. "I was thinking," she said over her shoulder, noting William had started to move to get himself standing, "We could use the sheet, the operating sheet. The one over your shoulders, the other one is bloody," she added the explanation, "Um, we could wrap it around you, like mine. We'll be a matching set," she softly giggled envisioning the sight of them standing together, posed for a fancy photograph, 'Toronto's Favorite _Sheet-Skirted_ Couple,' in her mind.

Now standing in front of her, even _despite the fact that she was his wife, that she had seen him naked countless times,_ he found he was uncomfortably embarrassed. He forced himself to fight the urge to put his hands in front of his manly parts. He watched Julia look down at him.

When her eyes rose back up off of his body and caught his eye, William frowned. It made her giggle.

"Here," she instructed, and she folded the operating sheet to the right size for him. Then she wrapped it around him and tied it around his waist. "There," she said, pleased with the result, a dashingly handsome man in a dress shirt and tie, and a sort of kilt-like sheet. She informed him, "When the local anesthetic wears off, the pressure of the sheet on your stitches will hurt. Still, I think much less than if you had trousers on."

William nodded, and for a moment the couple were just happy together. "Thank you," he said giving her a bow.

Having William standing before her, in a sheet, reminded her of the _time so long ago, when he had spent the night in her house after she had been attacked by Scanlon, after their dance-lesson together, and she had been so desperate to be in his arms, and she had asked him to stay, and despite the potential scandal, William had agreed, and he had slept on her couch, and, to sleep, he'd taken off his shirt and his trousers, just in his underwear, when she had cried out in the night, frightened by her nightmares, and he rushed in to help her, to soothe her, with merely a sheet up over one shoulder, draped over him, wrapped around him, so much like one of the Greek Gods, and she had teased him about it then, but, that's when it had begun, she had wholeheartedly begun her fall, her life-altering fall into loving him, then…_

Julia reached up and straightened his tie, still around his neck after all of this. _Back to it_ , keeping her eyes busy with his tie, she asked him, "William, could it be that there is a reason you were less inclined to suspect Elizabeth Mole, besides the evidence against Malcolm Lamb?"

 _There was a little tremor_ , under his feet, and unexpectedly, a memory, _of his sitting with Enid on her porch-swing, when she asked him, when Enid tucked her fingers under his chin and turned his face to hers, and she pointedly asked him, if it would bother him if there was a romance between Julia and Reginald Poundsett…_

 _William's defensive instincts kicked-in,_ _the man was bright, he would put the shoe on the other foot, as it were…_

William looked into Julia's eyes, and asked, "Or maybe _YOU_ wanted it to be Elizabeth, because she locked you in the cage with the Tiger?"

"I must admit, that would be a good reason," she almost giggled at the absurdity of it. Julia blew the building pressure she was feeling out through her pursed lips. " _Alright, just give it to him, that that is possible,"_ her inner-voice coached inside her head. "Perhaps," she said.

There was something luring, gravitational, a soft wind-shift, about her glance at him, though, and William felt the oddest warmth, and a sense of flooding in his chest. His brain reminded him, unexpected, right in that particular second, _how much he truly loved this woman._

Julia took a deep breath and stepped back. "What she did to me could be a factor… That and…" _one of those tugging glances again, rocketing him somehow,_ "Well," Julia ducked her eyes away, _as if protecting him from seeing her hurt,_ "Elizabeth Mole is a very pretty woman…"

"Julia," he interrupted her.

She cupped his cheek. "I know, William. And I know you would never act on any feelings you had for her… at least, not consciously… But I'm sure you feel an attraction to her…"

William's brain _, jagged pathways, with lightning bolt speed_ , stammered. " _It was best to be honest… That's what you did when Enid asked too, you admitted you had feelings for Julia…"_ But he was having trouble forming any words… And an argument appeared, that _he certainly did NOT feel the same way about Elizabeth Mole as he had ever, EVER, felt for Julia Ogden. Yes, the woman was attractive… And yes, she'd caught his eye – he was a man after all…_ And then he remembered that _he had bragged to Elizabeth about his booby-traps at the Body Farm, and that Julia knew that, now, too…_ And while all of that splattered around in his brain, all of a sudden William asked her, "Why would you ask me that?" and the moment he said it _he remembered he had done the same with Enid, too, at the time._

Julia's hand pulled away from his face and she sighed. There was a frown. " _William Murdoch was a brilliant man, but he could be SO OBTUSE sometimes!"_ she yelled the fact in her head.

Julia's blue eyes rose up to his – _such a profound strength, it floored him_. She moved her mouth to speak, and _he was already amazed with her, he was already thanking God for bringing her into his life…_

"She's your type, William," Julia said simply, matter-of-factly.

He raised an eyebrow at her, "My type?"

She sighed again. "Yes, you have a type, William. The Inspector… George, I'm sure they'd agree. You have a weakness for pretty, smart, strong, independent women," she explained it plainly for him. "I can name them, Sally Pendrick, Eva Pearce – she had quite a hold on you at first…"

William wrinkled his face at her, he couldn't deny it.

Julia went on, adding fuel to her argument, "You are even more thrown off your guard if the woman is beautiful _AND_ well-educated, and accomplished, like myself. Consider your Egyptian doctor archaeologist, Dr. Bajjali, and now Dr. Elizabeth Mole…"

William stood exposed, doe-eyed before her.

She wrinkled a corner of her mouth, feeling compassion for him. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, William," she gave kindly, her fingers back up to cup his cheek. "But, perhaps it's best that you are aware of it, hmm? That it might be swaying your judgment, even just a little? She wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him again, asking him to acknowledge that she was right.

" _Adorable_ ," _her heart fluttered_ , as he yielded…

William exhaled, _big_ – the steam built-up inside him almost visible as he let it go. He reached up and rubbed his brow, and then he said, "It is possible I was swayed." But he had a sudden urge to reclaim some of his pride, telling her, "But…" and now he put his hand to her face, his fingers curled under her jaw, his thumb, _feeling so delightfully big to her soft face, firm and strong, just under her ear,_ "But, despite that possible, and slight, hold she may have had over me, still, my suspicions were raised by her knowing about the antidote…" William held tight to Julia's blue, blue eyes and he nodded, then added, "She had to knowingly withhold it from her husband, after he'd been stabbed with the tranquilizer dart."

Julia nodded and smiled, "Yes. Yes, she would have had to. But there's more evidence against her than that, William…"

He was listening…

"Think of the shot you made today, with the tranquilizer gun, into the Tiger's back leg…"

He nodded.

"I, a trained physician, told you exactly where to target your aim. And you nailed it," she said, _a part of her awed all over again by him, by what he had done to save her, by how much he loved her,_ "And still…" she went on, "the end of the needle did not end up in a vein. That's why it took so long for the Tiger to fall, to be overcome by the drug. But, Nicholas Mole's leg… Remember the wound, the large, deep needle mark behind his knee…"

William nodded again.

"The end of the needle of the dart that was shot into Nicholas Mole's leg went EXACTLY where it needed to go, William – into the popliteal vein. I assure you, Malcolm Lamb couldn't make that shot – it had to be her," she concluded.

"I concur," he agreed, "Elizabeth Mole is our killer. Lamb loves her. He took the blame for her, but in actuality all that he really did was help her to dispose of the body, it seems. And if Lamb had not made the mistake of letting Elizabeth decide where to dump it, and if she had not sought to dump her dead-husband's chopped-up body in the SAME place where HE had dumped her lover, after he had killed him, we likely never would have caught them."

"True," Julia said, and then added, "Ironic, that now he has escaped without her, don't you think?"

"Mm," William pinched his lips together tight, and nodded.

They let the shared relief, of solving the crime, and of working out their own little lover's dustup, linger.

Julia charmed him, "So, we make a good team?"

And he chuckled and pulled her closer. "Yes, we make a good team," he agreed.

Julia noticed, as the angle of his face in the light changed, that he had the beginnings of a blackeye. She brought her fingers to touch it. "William…?"

"Mm," he answered.

"What happened here?" she asked, "Is it from the Tiger?"

He took a deep breath and replied, "No. No, but we are going to find MANY other injuries, besides what you've stitched-up, from that encounter, I assure you, doctor. No, um…" William reached up to feel the bruise himself, "No, this was from my struggle with Malcolm Lamb, right before he and Elizabeth Mole escaped."

"I see," she answered, stepping back to better examine the pink and red and purple mark.

William explained further, "Lamb came back here, while Elizabeth was…" he swallowed, "…taking care of you. He came to get some suitcases. I caught him. I had the tranquilizer gun. He confessed, as I told you…" William reached back to find the spot on the back of his head as he went on, "Elizabeth hit me, from behind, with something…"

Julia reached back to follow his fingers and find the lump – it was substantial.

"It took me by surprise, we struggled for the gun. Lamb used one of the suitcases. Swung it, and hit me in the face," he wrinkled a corner of his mouth, admitting that he had succumbed to the hit, "I dropped the gun… and they got away."

Julia asked, "And then that's when Elizabeth Mole told you I was in danger, so you would go to save me instead of chase after them?"

"Mm-hmm," William replied.

Julia sighed. Her eyes darted away, and her mood became flirtatious, for _he was an incredible man, and she found him quite attractive with all his heroism intertwined with his distinct, Williamy, vulnerabilities. Truth be told, she was just madly, madly, in love with this man._

William felt the delicious stirring in his groin as she took his tie in hand.

"I must say, detective," lush and sultry, her voice with its hoarse scratchiness, "I am happy to see that your tie survived, I do…" she leaned in and kissed him, quick, on his lips, "…so love the tie," her breath rolled over him as she said it, and she kissed him again, deeper, longer…

 _Mmm, so good._

Julia broke off the kiss, then nipped at his jaw, and then found his ear, "You're my knight in shining armor," she told him.

William would tease, his voice tickled with that lovely cockiness in it, "I only _WISH_ I had had some shining armor on when I faced the Tiger," he chuckled.

And, so delightfully, Julia laughed at his joke. And their next kiss was abandoned, and wiggly, and smooshy, and deep, and fiery, and dizzying all over.

And then, unexpectedly, Julia started to cry, ducking her head away from their kissing.

"Hey, hey there," William so quickly comforted. He lowered his face, bending a bit at the knees to get underneath her line of sight, and his manly thumbs wiped at the tears glistening on her cheeks. She kept her eyes away… And her face wrinkled as her crying increased in intensity.

William's heart ached in his chest as he kissed tenderly at her tears, tasted the saltiness of her in his mouth, slippery with the tanging of being wounded, sweet and lush as he swallowed, taking her in deeper, soothing them both, for there was also healing in the touch. "Shh. Shh," his wonderful voice covered her, cloaked her. "We're alright Julia. I'm right here. Shh. We're safe now. Shh…"

"I was so scared, William," her voice squeaky, tugging at him as she confessed it. _She was falling apart in his arms._ "I've never been so scared…" _So shaky_ , her inhale, "I was so, so scared…"

And her eyes, pink and pooled with tears, lifted to his. She sniffled, then giggled at herself.

"I was scared too," he said.

Julia dropped her eyes away again, and nodded to herself, "Not even when I was buried alive in Gillies' grave, inside that dreadful tiny coffin." Her eyes met his again, "Or when he hooked me up to that bomb, and I had to control my heartrate to stay alive…" She had to breathe, _quivery_ , "Not even then, was I so totally frightened as with this Tiger today… with that deafening, nail-screeching and scraping, on top of the tub… And for a second, I thought you might not…"

Abruptly they were startled apart with a jump as the door banged opened, both Crabtree and Higgins rushing in, excited to have found someone to tell them what was going on.

But it appeared they had caught the couple in a lovestruck moment of passion, and both constables raced to stare up at the ceiling, pretending not to see, and to utter, repeatedly, a showering slather of, "Sorry!" and "Sorry, sir…" and "Pardon us, doctor…" and "So, sorry… um, err, sorry, sir…" and "Again, so sorry…" before they bolted back out of the door.

Barely safe outside, Henry exclaimed in a whisper, "I hope when Ruth and I are married, we don't develop strange sexual customs… What was with those sheets?"

"Yes, I noticed tha…"

Behind them, the detective's voice bellowed, "George! Henry! Constables! There's no reason to…"

They were already turning back when Detective Murdoch stomped his foot, standing holding the door opened, once more. "Get back in here," he yelled.

)

As they put Dr. Elizabeth Mole into the paddy-wagon, she thanked them for letting her save the Tiger. Everyone else stepped away, leaving the detective alone in front of the bars. William asked her, "Why do you think Malcolm returned? He was free. He had you. He told me he loved you, that you were his Lady?"

"He said he couldn't do it – he couldn't leave you like that, detective. Leave you to watch the Tiger kill your Lady, the love of your life. Malcolm worried that she was the mother of your child, and she was pregnant now, again, pregnant with your child. It was too horrendous," she replied shaking her head, feeling a surge of love for Malcolm Lamb, for his sense of honor, "A man as good as Malcolm Lamb, he just couldn't do such a thing." Elizabeth figured, to herself, feeling the shame and guilt and grit of who she was sting in her heart, that _Malcolm felt responsible for what SHE had done to Murdoch's Love, that he could not live with himself, if he did not, at least try, to fix it._

"I'm grateful to him. He did help, you should know that. Not so much to save Julia, but he helped get ME out alive. I'll be forever grateful to him for that," William took her hand through the bars and lifted it to give her a winsome bow. "I wish you well," he said sincerely. He added, surprising himself with the disclosure, "I know the suffering, to live in a life of helplessness and constant fear. Perhaps the jury will consider it."

Elizabeth took her hand back through the bars and chuckled. She was _making a transition, preparing herself for what was to come, needing to be strong and rigid and locked away from her feelings, particularly any feelings of weakness._ "I would not expect so much from a jury of twelve _MEN_ , detective. They will not be like you, nor like Malcolm," she said.

"None-the-less," he said, "I wish it for you anyway. May God be with you."

"Thank you, William," she said, her tone far-off. She moved away from the bars.

William stepped away.

)

Travelling behind the paddy wagon which transported the confessed and charged killer, Dr. Elizabeth Mole, to Stationhouse #4, was a second, quite crowded, police carriage with passengers Detective Murdoch, his wife and the coroner, Dr. Ogden, Inspector Brackenreid, and Constable Crabtree. Detective Murdoch was not able to sit on the carriage seat due to the location and severity of his Tiger-claw wounds, so instead he kneeled on the floor of the carriage, facing the seat. He spent much of the time with his head resting against his wife's leg, and he uncharacteristically allowed himself to enjoy her running her fingers through his hair despite their being 'in public.' It seemed the least she could do for him, while the man who had saved her life, saved their baby's life, the man she loved until it hurt, kneeled, trapped, a captive audience, to the ramblings of Constable George Crabtree.

"It's a shame, sir," George was in the middle of telling his rendition of their discovering that Malcolm Lamb had most assuredly escaped that second time, "but it most definitely appears that Malcolm Lamb has gone ' _on the lamb_ ,' as it were. Get it sir. It's a pun, on the word 'lamb.' I'm sure you appreciate it, Dr. Ogden. I've known you to use puns in your jokes quite often…"

Julia smiled, "I always thought it was just my brand of morgue humor, I suppose."

"Oh, no, doctor. I quite enjoy them too, and I have less connection to the morgue, now… err, as you know, because Emily, um, Dr. Grace is no longer there," George insisted. "You know, sir," George changed the subject…

 _And Julia turned to look out the window in an attempt to hide her laughing at having heard her husband moan._

George's story would be longwinded, "You were right – there is an abundance of evidence to be garnered from footprints, like your ascertaining that Elizabeth Mole wore her husband's shoes when she dumped his body parts at your Body Farm, amazingly, the irregular weight distribution in the prints in the snow, your clue. That was quite impressive indeed, sir. We were particularly lucky today, because of the snow, and of course, because we still had the ending glow of daylight. We were able to tell that Malcolm Lamb escaped across the Don River, and then made it to a road, where, unfortunately, we lost his tracks. We could even tell that he had had both suitcases with him! Actually, it's amazing how to do that trick. It has to do with how deep into the snow the footprints are – deeper if he was carrying the bags! By the way, guess who the tracker is at the zoo, sir? You'll never guess, in a million years…?

Julia turned back as her husband lifted his head to speak.

"Jimmy… Jimmy McLeod, I believe," William figured this out because _it had to be someone who both himself and George knew, someone who was good at tracking, tracking people or animals – animals, like at a zoo._ "An Indian. Worked in our stables a long while back," William said, _of course, correctly_ , "He helped on that weird werewolf case."

Julia giggled at the sad sight of George's face.

"Yes. Yes, sir. That's right," George conceded. "I think I might have a character like Jimmy, in my next book, a sequel to 'Curse of the Pharaohs.' Actually, I consider myself quite lucky to have been sent out to search for Lamb today, sir… doctor," George included Dr. Ogden, realizing she was paying better attention than the detective was – _"probably the detective is exhausted from his ordeal_ ," he figured, _explaining the detective's impatience and general lack of interest_. George went on, "I think it will be very helpful, to have ridden a camel today, for my being able to better put myself in my character's shoes as it were… You know, the pharaohs are all in the desert. There have to be camels… in a story about a desert."

Julia returned her gaze to looking out of the window, her fingers still loving at her husband's hair. Her mind wandered, starting off from remembering the case that George had referred to – _the werewolf case. William had been with Enid Jones back then,_ so potent, the words she spoke to herself in her head, " _My heart – broken._ " _But, she had made her choice, she had been honest about her abortion with him. It had hurt, but she knew it had been the right thing to do. Later, she faced an even bigger choice, whether or not to tell him about her sterility, her choice then, a choice that she had made FOR him, to let him live his life with another. That decision, too, had been right, she was certain of it, but it had hurt so badly that she wasn't sure she would ever truly recover from it…_ Then, the memory flashed, from when _she had brought the wolf canine tooth she had found in the victim's spine, back on the strange case, to William, in his office, and he had looked at her that way he does when she has impressed him, all glittery-eyed and gorgeous, and she was certain he was about to kiss her – she had even heard the violins in her head. They were already madly in love by then, just apart, not together, but always, always, in love._ With a jump in her seat, the flash from today intruded, startling her. She saw it so clearly, as if it were happening all over again right now, she saw William whirling atop the Tiger, William riding the Tiger's back. _Almost lost forever._

William stirred, alerted by Julia's gasp, her startled jerk.

George's incessant talking stopped.

"Julia?" William asked.

"Sorry," she answered. "I just…"

"It's been happening to me too," William said, his beautiful face peering into hers, "I know. Suddenly it's all happening again."

"Yes," she wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him. She took his hand, found his wedding ring, rubbed at it. They both quieted.

"We're almost home," George tried to help.

 _Oh, how much she wanted to be home…_

)

The Inspector insisted that the Murdoch's be taken straight to their house, that anything to do with the case would be dealt with tomorrow, any interrogations, evidence analysis, loose ends, writing up the final report, all of it, tomorrow. With their bottom-halves still skirted in sheets, they stood together on the front porch as William hunted through the pockets of his bloody, and tattered and torn, jacket, for the keys, and, finally, gratefully, the couple stepped in through the door. It was too late for dinner, but the mouthwatering smell of Eloise's cooking hit them, alighting a sudden awareness, now overpowering their unbearable exhaustion, of how incredibly famished they each were.

William Jr. had been waiting for them, listening to Claire-Marie read him a book in the living room. The child, already dressed in his pajamas for bed, screeched with his delight as he had heard his parents at the door… And William and Julia delighted in the sight of their little son, barreling as fast as his short, little, toddler legs could carry him, right for them. It was a tradition, a custom, a joy, and all involved knew exactly what would happen next – William Jr. would leap into his Daddy's arms, and be flown up high into the sky, and probably spun around, and then be pulled back down for a big hug and a kiss, while his Daddy growled about how much he had missed his Little Man…

And all of this happened before their eyes, with Julia hovering close, worrying for William's Tiger-claw scratch lacerations on his back, and her husband caught her eyes, and somehow reassured her, and then he added, in between his customary roughhousing roars with his son, "It's fine. I'm fine," before enacting a favorite extension of their greeting that the child particularly loved, William lying the tiny boy out flat in his arms to "fly like a plane," and delightfully adding the engine swooping sounds as the pair of them buzzed around the house.

Claire-Marie asked, standing with her mistress, watching the show, "Why are you and the detective wearing these bedlinens, if I may ask?"

"Oh, it is such a long story," Julia replied, once again feeling overwhelmed by it all. She held up William's overcoat for the nanny to see the shredding from the Tiger, and she said, "The murderer in our case, she uh, she locked me in a cage with a Tiger…" _And the strangest, most wonderful sensation of ECSTASY hit her as she watched Claire-Marie's eyes bug wide, staring down at the shreds of William's coat_ and…

Claire-Marie gasped with disbelief, and exclaimed, "A Tiger!?"

"Yes. Isn't it amazing," Julia replied, "The detective saved me from being eaten! He jumped on the Tiger's back and… well, first he'd shot it with a tranquilizer dart, but it didn't work right away, and he had to save me, and, well, the Tiger clawed him when he was hanging from the ceiling of the cage, and…"

And then it hit her, it hit hard, took her breath away, for Julia realized, Julia remembered, she understood for the first time since it had happened, _that_ SHE _had saved_ HIM _, TOO. SHE had come out from under the tub. SHE had improvised, thrown the tranquilizer gun at a wild, ferocious Tiger, a Tiger, just ten feet away from her. She saved him, in that eternally long, gravely important, second… SHE had been strong, and brave and amazing, too. Though,_ standing there a bit stunned, when Julia chased her discovery further _, she did not think she would ever have had the courage to do what HE did to save her – how incredible it really was, to willingly drop yourself down onto the back of a savage, man-eating, Tiger. No, she didn't think she could have ever been THAT brave…_

Claire-Marie asked, "How did you get out!?" finding the waiting impossible.

"Oh! Oh, sorry. William jumped on the Tiger, so I could get out, and then we, um, there was a long pole, that they use to handle lions and tigers, and bears, I guess… And we um, we… one of the suspects in the case helped me try to save William who was stuck up on the Tiger's back, we stuck the long pole through the bars to catch the Tiger by its neck, and it worked, and that's how William got out," she nodded, thinking she had explained it all fairly well.

"C'est incroyable!" Claire-Marie declared, her eyes still dark and saucered, as she watched the detective, wearing his bedsheet-skirt to cover his stitched-up warrior marks, play with his 'Little Man,' "C'est incroyable!"

"It truly is," Julia agreed. Unconsciously, she placed a hand to rub the growing baby inside her womb, and she noticed, _she felt so remarkably happy, so ALIVE, so appreciative of… everything._

)

They discovered that William could sit on a stool with minimal pain, bringing one up from in his workroom to the kitchen table for him to use to eat. After they ate, they tucked William Jr. into bed, avoiding telling the little one anything more than that his 'Daddy had gotten hurt on his backside at work.' Unspoken between William and Julia, they each wanted to keep their son open-minded about Tiger's, about Tiger's and other such creature's in the world that survive only by eating others, until he was old enough to be able to grasp the complexities of the interconnected tangles of the world. He had already been inclined to ban the Tiger from his other toys. Certainly, knowing that one had hurt his father, not to mention almost killed and eaten his mother, and his father, and his unborn little brother or sister, too, would only cloud his judgement further.

Now, finally, all they had to do was prepare for bed. William wondered about a shower, _yearning to feel the warm water flowing, soapy and soothing, all over his weary, beaten-down flesh._ He imagined _showering with her_ , and just the thought of it scrumptiously tweaked the urgency in his groin, and he marveled at himself, _for, "even with all they had been through,"_ and then he thought, " _perhaps BECAUSE of all that they had been through," he wanted, so very keenly, to make love to her._

The doctor in the family, however, had other ideas.

"No. No, I don't think so, William," she said, her tone authoritative and practical, "You can't get your stitches wet. Only baths for you, no showers, I'm afraid."

His disappointed look gazed back at her, and then he accepted it, and then he wrinkled, confused. "But, a bath? How will I not get the stit…?"

"You'll have to bathe on your hands and knees, I suppose. I'll help," she answered, trying to sound cheery. "We can wash your hair under the tap in the tub. Not so bad, hmm?" she asked him, her clothes gone, he suddenly realized. Julia now removing his tie.

Now that, _that_ was a wondrous bath, healing, and complicated, a sort of game-of-twister, mixed with laughter, and lust, and the teasing and the problem solving, and the soaking, and the shared soaping, and the rubbing, and the kissing, and it all came to a wild, rampaging head, when Julia said to him, sultry and sexy and flirtatious, there in that warm bath, her under him, naked and delicious, "You're my hero, William, and I think, that now it is time, **that you come and ride** _ **THIS**_ **Tiger,"** and she laid back, her curves jiggly and bouncy, like that marvelous gelatinous substance, jell-O, that she had used to make the fire-poker mold all those years ago, so desperately _WANTING HIM_ under the warm, wet glow of the bathwater, and she opened her supple, long thighs to him, and William lost all control and he charged her, his big strong muscly arms around her, he swept her up, and she gasped and she screamed and she hung on tight, her long luscious legs wrapped around his waist, arms clinging to his neck, and he swept her up out of the water.

 _Thud_ , her back slammed into the closed bathroom door, muffled, muffled and softened, by the bathrobes fluffily hanging there on their high, high hook behind her. Dripping, dripping wet, their slippery, drenched skin slid and glided and wiggled and squeezed, so unbearably delicious, melding, squishing across each other, into one another. And William began, agonizing, her voracious moan, wanting him, wanting him so much closer, and he pumped and he pounded, thrusting, abandoned, savage, primal, William made love to her, mighty, invincible, _so close to touching her in that one, perfect, sweet, sweet spot, where they would implode…_

And _wham_ , the whole universe flipped over as he reached it, touched him to her, _pure heaven_ it exploded, erupted everywhere, _warm and gushy, he loved this woman so much_ , pure perfect heaven, the waves of rippled pleasure completely took them, delicious, one after the other the seismic rushes rolled and rumbled through every molecule of their bodies, of their souls, then his pumps slowly lessening, "I love you, so much Julia," his words scratchy and inside more than outside.

" _Please don't stop,_ " the wishing it would never, never end together, "I love you," Julia's softness, her perfect voice into him, all around him, all through him.

The stillness, the grounding, just below them now, settling, slowing, whirling, whirling, whirling, that last lovely, tiny, tiny drop rippled, then only pounding hearts and fear that you would never get enough oxygen coming into focus, _he loved her, My God, he loved her_. They floated there, for a moment, having just made love together like there would be no tomorrow.

Like it was the first time.

Like it was the ONLY time.

Like it was the last time.

And Julia began to cry.

And she whispered under the weight of it, "I'm sorry, William. I'm sorry. I should not have gone alone, today. I went alone…" she was referring to collecting the blood samples, and she knew he could not know that…

But he did, and he answered her, "I'm so sorry that I let you. I should have stayed, not left you alone."

And they held each other while Julia gently cried. And the wave of it passed. And the real world was back around them, and William felt the stinging of his Tiger-claw scratch sutures in his back, and he said, as he stepped back just that important inch that made two out of one, and he said, now rational and logical and realistic, "But that's how we often do it – I investigate, while you tend to pathologist matters – the body, taking samples…"

"Yes," she agreed, accepting what was.

They dried and crawled into bed, William next to her, lying on his stomach, her on her back. She snuggled to get half underneath him, kissed at his ear, ran her fingers through his hair in the dark.

She remembered their heart-to-heart talk in the surgery, him admitting his judgement could be swayed by another woman's beauty. And she remembered, too, that strange way William had said it when he was laid out in front of her in the wheelbarrow, his voice coming from below her, from where his face was hanging off over the side, as she strained to push him along, and he told her that "Nicholas Mole taunted and terrorized his wife, that he was one of those despicable brutes who beats his wife," and there had been something about the depth of the emotion that she sensed inside of him when he said it to her then, and so, now, she asked him, "William…"

"Mm," he sounded so close and warm and perfect in her ear.

"Today, when you were telling me about how badly Nicholas Mole treated Elizabeth…" she paused…

"Mm," he replied, right there with her in the safe darkness of their room.

"Well, it seemed to me…" she shifted, rolling him onto his side, the one side he had that was unscarred by the Tiger, "that you felt, quite deeply, quite personally, empathy, somehow, with what Elizabeth Mole had gone through at the hands of her abusive husband," Julia waited again, _so intimate now that he would have to fight not to run away._ And Julia's instincts hinted to her that this would be far enough back to be in his childhood. _It would be hard._

"Yes," he reached up and found her hair, still damp, he caressed it, his fingers gliding along the edges, the outlines of her face. "I know what it's like…" he leaned down to kiss her right next to her ear. _He would tell her, she was the one, the one in all the world who he wanted to know, to know everything._ William took a deep breath, decided, and then told from his heart, "I know from being a boy, and living with my father. The unpredictable, sudden rages, the yelling, and slamming and throwing things and breaking things, chairs crashing through bedroom windows and my mother's voice, oddly overly calm and strong, my heart pounding and racing so hard that it drums in my ears and I can't possibly think, and I want to hide, but I have to save Susana…"

And he stopped. He stopped there. And then he whispered, "I had to save her," and he kissed Julia's ear again, not wanting to go deeper.

"And you did, William. I'm sure you did," Julia whispered back to him.

William said, after a breath, after moving back, back to now, remembering today, thinking of Elizabeth Mole, and Malcolm Lamb, and Nicholas Mole, he said, thoughtful, "Today, after I had left you, when I had caught Malcolm Lamb and he was confessing, what he was really doing, I know now, lying, saving Elizabeth by taking the blame, and he was begging me not to pursue her, that he loved her, and he said that Elizabeth had been caught in her husband's 'terror prison.' Those words – 'terror prison,' so distinct, so clear to me, what that was like, to be so scared, so frightened that you lost yourself. And that reminded me of what it was like when I was just a lad. But now, now I'm a man…"

"Mm, yes," Julia shifted again, found his shoulder, strong and robust, the deltoid. She cupped it, stroked it.

"It reminded me of James Gillies," he said, _Julia not expecting that turn, but, so quickly, it making sense to her._ "Gillies tried to trap me – us, in his terror prison, too. And, well, I didn't ever tell you this, but I pulled the trigger, that day, that day when he hooked you up to the bomb, and he had William Jr., the syringe, the needle, poked to our little boy's neck…"

Now Julia leaned in close, to connect, to assure him she was with him, he was not alone, with a soft kiss.

William organized his thoughts, remembering, _he'd said he'd pulled the trigger_ … "Remember, Gillies had a gun that day, that he didn't know about the one I'd rigged-up under my sleeve…"

"Yes," Julia answered. _She'd seen it. He had used it to get her to leave him William Jr., to lie down on the bed and let him hook up the bomb, or he would shoot the baby…_

"I had that gun, Gillies' gun, in my hand. Gillies made me pick it up from where he had intentionally left it for me, on our coffee table. I had to take it, or he'd kill William Jr." William was rushing to tell it now, "I refused to fire it at him, in a sense choosing justice over saving my child. I was trying to find another way to save our beautiful child, without killing, without murdering. But then Gillies said it, said out loud _exactly_ what I was planning to do. That had been my only chance – I had to be faster than Gillies, get across to knock the syringe out of his hand before he pushed it into our baby, and I just knew I would be stuck in that terrifying moment for the rest of my life, that moment before he pushed that heroin into our child, and he would have you, torment you, too, Julia, forever, ticking attached to that bomb, and so I chose. I shot. I killed, for it was not a rubber bullet in that gun…" He stopped. He breathed.

Julia's brain hurried, almost she said it, _"Didn't you shoot him WITH the rubber bullet…"_

William finished, "The chamber was empty, just a 'click,' and it seemed like the world ended with that unexpected, tiny 'click' because Gillies didn't die, and now he had the power, because he felt the juice of pleasure in torturing me, and he had the syringe, and you hooked up to a bomb, and I was powerless, at least that was what he had thought, and then I shot him, with the rubber bullet, so he didn't die, and still, now he's dead, justice done. But I know, Julia. I know, that to get out of that 'terror prison,' I would have killed. And, I imagine it might have been a bit like that for her… for Elizabeth, for Elizabeth, too."

"Wow," she felt the impact land heavy on her, felt how heavy it was on William's soul.

No words could cure it, it was a central, down-in-the-core, change in him. But she wanted him to know that she loved him, that she would always love him, and so she kissed at his cheek, and she told him she loved him. That she had never known a better man, she was certain none better existed anywhere in the world. And she was grateful to him, for getting THEM out of that 'terror prison,' and she figured he needed to thank God that he had been given a way, a chance, to do so, and to do so _with_ justice, in the end.

Sleep came. The day that William rode the Tiger's back and survived, the day they saved each other from the Tiger, that momentous day, was through.

)) ((

Storyteller notes:

"The Lady, or the Tiger?" is a short story written by Frank R. Stockton in 1882. In the story, the king uses public trial by ordeal as an agent of poetic justice, with guilt or innocence decided by the result of chance. A person accused of a crime is brought into a public arena and must choose one of two doors. Behind one door is a Lady whom the king has deemed an appropriate match for the accused; behind the other is a fierce, hungry Tiger. If the accused chooses the door with the Lady behind it, he is innocent and must immediately marry her, but if he chooses the door with the Tiger behind it, he is deemed guilty and is immediately devoured by it. After the king learns that his daughter has a lover, a handsome and brave man who is of lower status than the princess, he has her lover imprisoned to await trial. The princess uses her influence to learn the positions of the Lady and the Tiger behind the two doors. When her lover looks to the princess for help, she discreetly indicates a door. The outcome is never revealed.

Many of our characters found themselves in front of these two doors, fate bringing them to a life-altering choice. It happened to Nicholas Mole the night he found his wife, Elizabeth, with her secret lover, Adam Restell. For Nicholas Mole, he could choose his Lady, love Elizabeth so much that he would let her go, or he could choose the wildness of the Tiger, he could kill, kill his rival, and in doing so, destroy his Lady. Nicholas Mole chose the Tiger. Then, the night he heard his Lady tell Malcolm Lamb that he had murdered Restell, he took a step further, choosing to kill again, again choosing the Tiger. Nicholas Mole attempted to kill his wife, was stopped from doing so by Malcom Lamb. In the end, that decision cost him his life, killed, not directly by the Tiger he had chosen, but instead, by the Lady.

)

Dr. Elizabeth Mole, too, faces pivotal decisions in this tale. She lost the Lady, although in her case, her Lady, her love, was a man, Adam Restell. He was not a choice she had. Her husband had never given her a chance to choose that door. But she had a chance at freedom, freedom becoming her Lady, after that. When confronted with the choice between her freedom or to save the Tiger, the innocent Tiger, who needed the antidote to survive, Elizabeth Mole chose the Tiger. She returned to the surgery to get the antidote, knowing she would be caught. Yes, most definitely, Elizabeth Mole chose the Tiger.

)

Malcolm Lamb is a major character in this tale. At first, it seemed he had chosen the Lady, he had escaped with Elizabeth, in doing so giving up his Tiger, the truth – Justice, by not turning himself in to Detective Murdoch. But now, now we see that was not the end of Malcom Lamb's tale. Fate had sent him another dilemma, consequential and huge. Lamb had to choose, once again. He could choose to stay, continue with his Lady, or return, return to risk being captured, but to do what was right, to correct the injustice his Lady had committed, locking Detective Murdoch's Lady in a cage to be killed by a Tiger. This time Malcolm Lamb chose his Tiger, he chose Justice over the Lady. He came back, back to help save Julia, and in the end to help Julia save her Love, Detective William Murdoch.

)

 _ **But, when you look more deeply at 'the Lady, or the Tiger' fable you discover that it is NOT the hero who has the dilemma laid out before him, but rather, it is another that holds his fate – it is the hero's lover who has the ultimate choice. It is SHE who faces the most essential dilemma, for she must decide which door to point him towards. And for William & Julia, Julia had faced this dilemma years before THIS story of 'the Lady, or the Tiger' had even happened. And thus, we already know her decision. She chose to tell her lover, the man she knew in her bones would always, always, be the love of her life, she chose to point William Henry Murdoch to the door with the OTHER Lady behind it, though it wholly shattered her heart to do so. She left him to go to Buffalo, telling him that maybe he would find another woman who would catch his eye. She made that profoundly difficult choice back then, Julia choosing the Lady for William, rather than the Tiger, the Tiger he would have faced if she had stayed, a life without having children. So, in William & Julia's story, we DO know what choice the hero's lover made. But…**_

 _ **One thing we also never know from 'the Lady, or the Tiger' fable is which door the hero actually chooses. True, his lover tells him which door to choose, but… could he not still choose the other? The hero could assume his lover did as Julia Ogden had done for William, point to the door with the OTHER Lady behind it, knowing that she loved him enough to give him up for herself to spare his life, to save her lover from the Tiger. But, in HIS loving HER so much, could he not still choose the other door instead? Is it not possible that the hero could choose the Tiger, in a sense choosing to risk death rather than to live a lie? And so, we know it was with William, back when his Lady left him. He chose NOT to go with another woman as Julia had guided him to do. He chose instead to live his life without a wife, alone, not having the children Julia gave him up for. He chose instead to live the truth. He chose the Tiger.**_

 _ **And like his real-life encounter with the Tiger today, William Murdoch found a way to face the man-eating, ferocious Tiger, and NOT to be devoured by it. Today, he did so by riding the Tiger's back long enough for chance to give him a way out. Back in the past, after he had lost his Lady, and Julia had left him, in a sense he rode that Tiger out too. William chose to live his life alone, and forever lonely, but fighting on to save the good in the world, seeking truth and justice, foregoing love. In this way William's path was substantially similar to that of Malcolm Lamb. He had chosen the Tiger, despite Julia having had pushed him the other way – to choose another Lady. He stuck it out riding his Tiger, fighting for his sense of what was right – Justice. William never took another love after Julia had left him, thus he never opened the door to the other Lady. He survived through it, survived through his loneliness, until fate gave him another chance, and his true Lady showed up one night in a red velvet dress, and he grabbed that chance. William Murdoch rode the back of the Tiger, and he survived it, and then, having survived it, he found that he could still, in the end, have his Lady.**_

 _ **One final truth to consider when reflecting on this story is that, for William Murdoch, the tale of the 'The Lady, or the Tiger' cannot be one of a dilemma, of a profound and important, life-shattering choice, because when it comes to Julia Ogden, William Murdoch never really has a choice, for him, it will always be the Lady if she is one of the choices. No, today our hero found another way, making this a story, not of 'EITHER – OR,' but of 'AND.' Today, at our story's end, William Murdoch chose BOTH the Lady AND the Tiger, choosing the Tiger today, in order TO CHOOSE the Lady, he chose the Tiger to save the Lady. He had no choice but to face the Tiger, not truly. And thus, for Detective William Henry Murdoch, there is a BETTER title for this tale than "The Lady, or the Tiger" – for our hero it is more accurately entitled, "FOR the Lady, the Tiger."**_

 _ ***** One more chapter to go (Chapter 24: In the Aftermath of the Tiger)**_

 **History and Science: true facts:**

 **Ironic, but true – the real inventor of the Tranquilizer gun was Colin MURDOCH of New Zealand.**

 **There really was a Riverdale Zoo, and it had all of the animals used in this story, even the hippo and the Tiger. The surgery performed on the pelican whose beak was bit off by a wolf is true. And, as awful as it is, a male elk really did gore its mate when being teased by teenage boys, with the female needing to be euthanized because of the extent of her injuries. And in 1905, a bull-buffalo cow really did protect its calf by charging at a group of workers. It is also true that, during the zoo's construction one of the zoo's hippos sat down on a wet cement floor, leaving behind a substantial divot. The building is one of the few structures that still remains at the Riverdale Zoo today.**

 **There really was a winter-house built to protect the most vulnerable animals against the elements. And it was built by workers, most of whom really were inmates from the neighboring Don Jail, on the other side of Don River, the same Don River of fictitious Murdoch Body Farm.**

 **In real-life, the veterinarian at the Riverdale Zoo really was named Dr. Mole. Further, the founder of the Riverdale Zoo really was "Alderman Lamb," the same last name as out fictitious retired detective, and convicted murderer and inmate at the Don Jail, Malcolm Lamb.**

 **Curare was discovered and used as a paralyzing poison by South American indigenous people. The prey being hunted was shot by arrows or blowgun darts dipped in curare, leading to asphyxiation owing to the inability of the victim's respiratory muscles to contract. In 1780, Abbe Felix Fontana discovered that it acted on the voluntary muscles rather than the nerves and the heart, paralyzing the victim without immediately killing them. An 1887 catalogue, Burroughs Wellcome, listed tablets of curare at 1⁄12 grain (price 8 shillings) for use in preparing a solution for hypodermic injection. It is harmless if taken orally because curare compounds are too large to pass through the lining of the digestive tract to be absorbed into the blood. For this reason, people can eat curare-poisoned prey safely. In medicine, curare has been superseded by a number of curare-like agents, such as pancuronium, which have a similar pharmacodynamic profile, but fewer side effects.**

 **Curare Antidote: Muscle paralysis can be reversed by administration of a cholinesterase inhibitor such as pyridostigmine, neostigmine and edrophonium.**

 **Procaine was first synthesized in 1905. It was created by the German chemist Alfred Einhorn who gave the chemical the trade name Novocaine, from the Latin nov- (meaning "new") and -caine, a common ending for alkaloids used as anesthetics. It was introduced into medical use by surgeon Heinrich Braun.**

 **UV photography does actually detect bruises unseen in the visible light spectrum. It is currently used commonly in forensics, often to document child and spousal abuse.**

 **Finally, maggots can be used to determine location and time of death. They require a warm enough temperature to be present. They also consume the flesh of the body, and so ingest drugs the victim had in their systems. In this way, maggots can be used to discover what chemicals were administered to a victim.**

 ***** Not Quite Yet,** _ **THE END**_


	24. 24: In the Aftermath of the TigerT

The Lady, or the Tiger? 

Chapter 24: In the Aftermath of the Tiger

 _Reader Alert: Spoilers to the end of Season 11, and also note that epic tales sometimes involve epic afterwards_ _( ;_

 _ **William's guardian angel hand-shadow puppet, up on William Jr.'s ceiling, had told something that is extremely crucial to the tale of the Lady, or the Tiger. Encountering the Tiger reveals what is most important in one's life. Facing the Tiger accomplishes this is by uncovering to you, directly, so close that its truth, its reality, is undeniable, what it is that you have to lose, be it your life, your love, or your own self-respect, and then threatening it – for, in order to know its true value to you, you must confront losing it. Furthermore, confronting losing what is most important to you is traumatic, and so, it is necessary, in the aftermath of the Tiger, to also deal with the repercussions of living through trauma. In the aftermath of the Tiger, you cope with surviving the Tiger-trauma.**_

 _Aftermath definition:_

 _First definition: the consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event._

 _Second definition: FARMING: new grass growing after mowing or a harvest._

 _ **Trauma affects us. Facing death and surviving can leave one feeling miraculous, indestructible, powerful – special. You walk around in a different world than before, one that seems more vivid, more potent, and yes, more dangerous. You live in that world, often euphoric, at first. Within you, there is a blissful sense that you are invincible. This mystical, magical state, it passes.**_

 **) In Shock, Right After the Tiger**

 _ **President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside."**_

 **Neither William himself, nor Julia** _ **,**_ **William was certain of it** _ **, knew of anyone in their lives who had come so close to encountering a Tiger, face to face, as they both had – or even closer, flesh to flesh, claw to skin, as he had. "Well, perhaps that tiger-tamer from the circus…"**_ **William had thought to himself** in the carriage ride home last night, somewhere in between Constable Crabtree's ramblings on about riding camels in the desert and analyzing footprints. __ _That circus tiger-tamer, however, was only known to them as a victim – Miss Kitty Walker, the poor woman, eaten by a tiger, a tiger who had been starved by the murderer, chained every day, out of reach of any other food, only instincts, the tiger's brutal attack, the unthinkable done to survive._

Those thoughts had triggered the more intrusive, palpably disturbing ones, flaring the memories into his brain, of that terrifying moment when _he had thought that Julia's voice was coming from INSIDE of the Tiger's belly…_ William had shaken the horror off once more, while kneeling there, wounded, stitched-up, cared for, on the pleasantly rocking floor of the police-carriage, successful in solving the case, with his wife lovingly stroking his hair, wondering to himself, _if they weren't lucky, lucky that THEIR Tiger had not been starved_. And, so quickly after that thought William had become annoyed with himself, for once again all manners of avoiding thinking about the troubling ordeal had failed.

" _Maybe Higgins…"_ his brain had tried to move on, _for the constable had hit Kitty Walker's escaped and crazed tiger with his truncheon that day_ , William had remembered. It was unavoidable however, thinking about it. And so too, it was impossible, not to feel remarkable for having had won, for having defied all the odds, **for** _ **NOT**_ **ending up inside the Tiger** , **for having saved Julia from ending up inside the Tiger – purely, unequivocally,** _ **remarkable**_ _._

 **) Falling Asleep… Waking, After the Tiger**

At first, it had been just the mere FALLING ASLEEP that had seemed the hardest, for only seconds into drifting off, the flashes would come – memories, but so lucid, _back there feeling like RIGHT NOW, RIGHT HERE – the Tiger's eyes meeting yours, heart-stopping in their golden-yellow intelligence and focus._ Piercing sounds _, deafening, skin-crawling scratching on the metal of the water tub, or the smallest 'tink' of William's wedding ring on the ceiling bar. Slow-motion drops of William's blood falling, silent splashing on the shimmery floor from the ceiling above, splattering next to his hat, being circled, stalked, by the Tiger… or the harrowing, unfathomable slamming of Julia's body, again and again, against the underside of the tub, as the Tiger pulled at, slashed at, her blue skirts, left outside – the exposed fabric providing the man-eating Tiger 'a way in,' so helpless… so impending… so close…_

They would soothe each other each time one of them spooked, bolting upright in their bed out of their nightmare, to be cloaked in tender whispering, promising, simple, the reassuring, warm, calm words in the dark, the feeling of being held, to help cover you… "Just a dream. We're safe. Shh. Shh. You're safe here with me… Just a dream." But these intrusions weren't 'dreams,' they were memories, flashes so real, triggering all the senses as if they _were happening all over again,_ so much so that the body would react, _jump, run, squeeze tight to the Tiger's furry neck, scream…_

And despite the inevitable encountering of that turmoil, eventually, deeper sleep came, and with it there was some healing, the memories then played out subconsciously more than consciously, deeper, becoming a part of you, but in doing so, letting you move on.

Morning came to find William and Julia sleeping huddled closer together than usual, spooning, silky-smooth, naked skin-to-skin, under the covers. William still asleep behind her, Julia had awakened, so pleasantly, _softly, slowly_ , rather than with the jolts and frights of the night before. She treasured the sensation of having William snuggled so near to her, warm and strong – glorious, to be in his arms. And, all around them, lustrous, rosy, dawning light shone into their bedroom. In that blush, her eyes had caught on it, with a tiny enchanted gasp, a crystal rainbow on the wall, reflected off of the edge of her vanity mirror, the day's first light through a thin sliver of one of the blinds at their window. She wallowed in the sensations of being wholly grounded in this phenomenal, wonderful, world. Julia laid there, in her one-true-love's arms, the rhythm of his sturdy, steady, breaths rippling down her neck, and she drank in those vibrant colors, radiant, luminescent, striking down into her innermost core to erupt her secret-soul into a reverberating hum, the miniature rainbow, so small, so temporary, so forever possible, whenever there was light, if the angle was right, if you looked at in just the right way, for its simple, intrinsic beauty to be revealed to you.

William's breaths changed, shortened, as he woke behind her. Before his eyes had even opened, he reached, pulled, wanted her closer, longed to tuck his face deeper into her neck, to smell her… " _Ouch_!" the stabbing sting across his back screamed the air out of his chest with a jolt.

To Julia, just a gasp.

"You felt the stitches?" she said knowingly.

"Mm," he answered, grumbly, exhaling and continuing pulling her deeper into him. Delightful, the sliding against him of her satiny skin. Happiness, pure and sublime, in her smell, heaven to be softly stroking her curls out of his way, opening the way to her neck.

And despite the fact that her head purred, _"mmm,"_ with the solidness of his sleek, harder, male body against hers, and she tingled under his stubbly jaw and chin as he sucked the scent of her in, and kissed at her neck, Julia kept her eyes on the rainbow reflection on the wall and said, "William, I've found something, so beautiful. It must be there every morning, but I have never noticed it before. Trivial, small, I guess, but it makes my heart sing…"

"Mm," William's kissing and enjoying the way the sensations of having her in his grasp, in his mouth, soared his primal urges, so magnificent the charges thundering to his groin, intensifying, maturing.

Julia felt her own body responding, and it, too, was lovely, but… "William," she giggled, "Just look…" her fingers reached back to find his ear, to scratch and slink upwards into his hair, "It's on the wall."

A good sport, her husband lifted his head out of his kissings, and his smellings, and his luscious nuzzlings and other various temptations. He glanced at her, followed her eyes to the wall. He saw it there, knew the pretty reflection of banded waves of light was what had touched her so…

"The rainbow?" he asked her, going back to kissing her.

She giggled again, "Yes, the rainbow. You could at least appreciate it."

"It is beautiful," he answered her, and then he shifted, grimacing with the pain, tossed the covers aside, and rolled her onto her back to admire the full sight of his naked wife in bed with him. He felt her eyes on him as he allowed himself the pleasure, his eyes seeming to catch and memorize each curve, each pink and creamy nuance, of her.

"William Murdoch," she teased, "I meant the rainbow. The colors are so rich… That tiny little thing, just there…" she turned her head and pointed, "just for a moment, it makes me… happy."

"The morning light makes everything warm and golden," he augmented, his eyes still on her body. His hands moved to her most _round, plump, full… mmm, so squishy between his fingers,_ the air rushing out of his nostrils – hungry and alive, _scrumptiously blaring his groin to alert,_ and then he cherished the riding of his fingers along the inward curve to her waist, sliding downward lower, and in towards her perfect belly button, and underneath it to caress the growing baby inside of her – the "Murdoch Bump." _Euphoria, there with her_ , smoldered down into his bones.

"Baby Murdoch," he said, "Today, I'm going to buy your Mommy a rose of every color, every color that they have in the flower shop, and make her a beautiful bouquet to remember the colors of the rainbow on the wall, and how it made her heart sing… Ahh," William's eyes glistened so, "Or better, better than that, let's make it _TWO_ roses of each color."

It was Julia who did it then, yielded to her more cardinal desires, snuck her fingers into his hair, grabbed two fistfuls – tight, and pulled, pulled his hunky body down into hers. Their lips, so moldable and pliable, hot breaths flooding out of their mushed and squeezed noses, pouring, drowning down, and inside, tongues unbelievably, unbelievably soft and warm. Rocketing, the tastes of each other swallowed in, taken in, alighting fire, screaming _down there_ with wanting.

"Not enough time," the fight to resist.

"Quick. We'll be quick," the breathless rebuttal.

"William Jr. will come," resistance faltering, "But…" the reminder pushing over the edge, "This is the last time…"

 _He had forgotten_ …

"The last time, for us…this… this way…" the breathless, last-chance, lured.

And William remembered Isaac Tash's instructions, that once the halfway point of her pregnancy had been reached, there would be _no more, deep, penetrating, delicious, love, "for awhile_ …" he answered inside his head. "Just for awhile," came the scratchy acknowledgement that he had understood the significance, and he shifted, positioned, readied, on top of her.

"One last time…" the submission so lustfully soupifying the brain…

And steamy, sultry, rosy-smoked walls encroached, swept in, collapsed upon them when he requested with a touch, an urgent press, at her inner thigh, for her succulent surrender, imploding, zooming them full force, compelled towards _their_ center, yearning, Julia pleading, "William, please," aching to have him closer…

Toddler-sized, the little knocks at the door.

And then, defeated, deflated, William dropped, heavy, down onto her, and he groaned.

Julia giggled, teasing him about his frustration. She would find the bright side, accepting her own disappointment as well, "I do, _so love_ , his little knocks."

"You would have quite liked my bigger ones, too," he retorted, from somewhere on the border between playful banter and still wishing, as his voice grumbled it into her ear, meaning a much different kind of ' _knock,_ ' more savage, more sensual.

"I don't doubt it," she whispered to him. Then Julia propped herself up on her elbows, pulling her face out of the dreaminess of him, and from there she raised her voice so that William Jr., on the other side of the door, could hear her, she called out, "Mommy's coming, sweetie. Be right there," and she sat up, pulling away from the luscious clutches of her reluctant husband.

And then, _oh yummy, she had thought of a joke she could make him suffer with,_ devilish her smile. "Besides husband, you've…" she paused, and looked into William's face, preparing for his grumpy complaint, and she could tell that he sensed it coming, that he already knew that it would be one of her dreaded puns, "You, mister, have already ' _knocked' – me up_ , quite enough, don't you think?" Julia bubbled and wiggled at him, and then she shoved her chin proudly up into the air, and then she bounced out of the bed, setting off a cascade of moans from William, some of them reactions to the physical pain of being flung about by the turbulence of the mattress flaring his stitches, others mixed in with his interminable enduring of the painful impacts of her humor, and the total acceptance of the loss of their ' _last chance, for awhile.'_

Rushing to pull her nightgown on over her head and hurry to the door, Julia called back to him, "Your pajamas William, the Tiger scratch… It would upset him if he saw his Daddy so hurt."

Tremendous the surging, screaming sting of his wounds as he ignored the pain, fished up his pajama bottoms, pulled them up, and… " _Oh my G…, that hurts_ ," over his backside. _The pajama top, still buttoned, just pull it over your head…_ "Urgh,"the gushing out of the searing, piercing, stinging hurt – as those long, deep, gashes, each with two outer rows of tiny, poked-up sutures catching along the sliding pajama-top cloth – announced to the room.

Julia heard him battling with it all behind her, as she opened the door and scooped her little son up into her arms, stealing the child's attention from any chance of noticing his father's suffering. "Good morning my Little One," she declared, smothering the toddler with hugs and kisses.

"Morning Mommy," he answered, so sweetly it melted her.

She knew, predicted based on the myriads of times it had happened before, that the very next second he would seek his Daddy, wanting, so badly, the roughhousing that soared his little-boy heart with joy. Sensing William was not quite ready for the explosive charge, she decided that, today, it would be Mommy's job. "I'm gonna fly you like a plane!" she warned, and then laid him out flat on his belly in her arms, and Julia made the roaring engine sounds, and Julia spun the little boy around, and lifted and dropped him with the play turbulence…

William called out, "Mayday! Mayday! A crash landing – onto the bed," guiding the game.

Grateful, Julia lunged for the option, her arms, her back, feeling the strain. "Zoom… Whoosh," she exclaimed, releasing his little body to glide, weightless for that delicious, tiny second, as the gravity shifted, before he plopped safely down onto the mattress.

"Daddy do it! Daddy do it!" William Jr. shrieked out, it seemed before he had even fully landed, wanting another go.

William's smile, so big, he squatted down low and opened his arms out in front of him, inviting his young son to leap, to fly, flat out, into his arms, to catch the roll forward as the spinning, whirling fun began, and he lifted his boy up to the sky, and they " _vrroooom_ "ed, and they zoomed, around the bedroom until William's alert came, "Prepare for a crash landing!" and, _my goodness,_ did that little child sail through the air.

"Again Daddy!" the shriek, making William laugh…

And Julia felt the sides of her mouth aching with the huge size of her smile.

And the marvelous play repeated, and then once more.

Then William Jr. squealed out something different, lovely and unexpected, as his body bounced to a soft, feathery halt on the mattress. "Mommy now!" he said. And the little boy rushed to grab his Mommy's hand, and Julia thought, _William thought too_ , that the boy meant for his Mommy to throw him this time, but instead, he tugged her over to his Daddy.

"Mommy too, Daddy!" his little toddler orders decreed.

"Mommy too?" William questioned, a mischievous glimmer sparking in his eyes.

"Yes Daddy… Pleeaase!" the little one jumped up and down, so excited he was bursting.

William looked over into her face…

"William," her tone threatening, "You wouldn't dare…" she warned him as she started to back away, shaking her head at him.

And there was a tingle of fun charging in the air…

And he chuckled at her, crouching lower, "Oh, I think I might," he alerted.

Impossible to say which first, so simultaneous, the commotion, the ruckus, began…

Julia squealing and turning and running…

William taking up chase…

"William!" she squealed.

Their little boy just stared, wide-eyed, as his Mommy and Daddy played.

Daddy sweeping her off of her feet, spinning her into a glorious whirlwind.

Effervescent bubbles of laughter, and Julia and William Jr. shrieking, and William growling…

And Julia yielded to his demands, to be a plane, and she stuck her long, long legs out behind her, and extended her arms out in front of her, and her husband's strong arms held her weight, out, gliding through the air, spin, after spin, taking the swirling fun closer and closer to the bed, and he dipped her down low, and pulled the whole motion backwards, loading, preparing to fling her through space…

Her voice yelled out, suddenly truly frightened, she screamed, "No William! The Baby! Don't! The Baby!" she reminded…

Ans so immediately he grasped the danger that throwing her to the bed would place on the growing fetus inside of her, and he stopped the motion, saving the day, _Julia, saving the day,_ panting and out of breath, and he tilted her, and brought her feet back down to the floor.

"Sorry," he said, and he looked into her eyes and he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her and he saw her curls still in motion, swinging forward around her flushed face.

"No need," she shushed his worries.

From down close to the floor, William Jr. asked, "Why stop, Daddy?"

William exhaled through pursed lips, pressure released. He answered, kneeling down to his son, "It could have hurt your little brother or sister…"

Only puzzled eyes, so big, so brown.

Julia stepped over to the little boy, and she lifted him up to stand him on the bed directly in front of her, and she put his small hand on her belly. "There's a baby growing in here, Little One," she said, "Remember, we told you?"

"Baby?" he answered her, feeling only belly.

"It's still very, very little," his mother explained, "Remember the tiny kittens we saw at the church a few weeks ago? It's small, like that."

"Like kittens?" William heard his son ask, as Julia scooped him up and began to walk him to his room to dress for the day.

" _SMALL_ like that," she answered.

"Why?" he asked.

Behind her, William shook his head. _The 'why-chain' had begun._

"Babies have to grow, in a special place inside their Mommies, inside, but like the pouch in the Mommy kangaroo in your book…"

"Roo?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm," she answered.

"Why?" he asked.

Julia now, too, recognized the toddler-pit she had fallen into.

Her voice elevated, "I'll bet, after all that fun and excitement, you need to urinate, am I right?" his mother wisely changed the subject.

"Ur-nate," the little one agreed.

"Good," she smiled, "You're getting to be such a big boy."

)

William was finished with his shaving and his other required daily rituals by the time Julia came back in, Claire-Marie taking over with William Jr. She found William standing, still in his pajamas, in front of his opened closet.

 _He was imagining the pain of wearing a suit._

"Detective," she came to stand next to him, "Shall we treat your wounds?"

"Very good, doctor," he agreed with a nod and clamped lips. He anticipated pain.

"Take off your pajamas," she instructed, ahead of him on her way to lay-out what she needed in the bathroom. Professional, her demeanor, she examined the four long slashes she had sutured yesterday. " _Considering everything…"_ she thought, then spoke, "The Tiger-claw gashes appear to be healing well." Using another one of William's inventions, she dabbed some of her penicillin mold-extract as deeply into each section of the four long cuts in his flesh as she could. "These little ' _Cute-Tip_ s' you made for me are wonderful, William," she glowed. The simple tool consisted of a short, thin wooden rod with a small, bulbous wad of cotton glued to each end. It was simple but inventively clever. Making small talk to distract from the sting she was certain he was feeling, she explained, "They allow for precision and depth and a softness as well."

"Good," all he said.

"I make sure to always have some in my medical bag," she added, shifting lower to treat the parts of the Tiger-claw slashes on his buttocks. "George admired them, yesterday…" _her mind straying into dangerous territory, thinking that George had probably admired William's squared-off, hunky, bicycling buttocks, as well_ , before she rushed to add, "the _'Cute-Tips,'_ I mean… at the zoo. He saw me using them on… on you in the surgery, after the Inspector returned with my medical bag," she elaborated, "He suggested you patent the invention, said you could get rich…"

"Like those glue-lined strips I made, to stick papers to the wall – he suggested calling them, 'Constable Crabtree's Household Adhesive Strips," William inserted, "The ones you also absconded with, adding a square of gauze to the center of the strip… your 'Bandage-Aids."

She giggled, playing along, grateful for more to distract him with, adding, "I think my favorite kooky idea of George's was his microwave 'Potato-Cooking Room' idea…"

"Mm," William responded, leaving her wondering if it was agreement or a moan.

"Finished, detective," she straightened upright. Putting the supplies away she said, "I really do think it's best you stay home today." Julia was fully aware that her husband WANTED to go to work, thus the pause after the request.

William rubbed at his brow and turned to catch her eye. "Doctor," he thought he might keep their professional titles in play, for his arguments were Constabulary related. "You very well know that the press will be waiting at the stationhouse…"

She nodded, "Of course," she agreed.

"And it has taken half a year to solve this case," his enthusiasm started to stir her heart, "And, up to now, the news stories have been…"

She said it, "Critical, to say the least," revealing her own frown with _remembering the worst of the berating, badgering press, their relentless hounding, showing up anywhere, at their home, at the Body Farm, barreling cruel and intrusive questions and comments at them… those awful headlines…_ "Yes, detective," her wrinkled corner of her mouth giving away that her resolve was wavering.

"I can wear that suit… the one that is too big, from right after we were married..." his suggestion showed he had put some thought into it, his eyes twinkling, and his wrinkled face urging with its unspoken, _"Please."_

A part of Julia's brain thought back to when he had needed to buy the bigger suit – _they'd been living in the Windsor House Hotel right after they'd married. The food was quite good, and William was not used to such pampering, he did overindulge, at first…_

He had gone on, "There will be questions. I need to finish up…" His eyes danced and glimmered so.

"Yes," she gave. It did her heart good to see William so happy. And, delightfully, it was thoroughly contagious. Her fingers reached up to his injured eye, imagining ahead, _picturing the press taking his picture, flashbulbs popping_ in her mind. "This eye of yours is not so bad," the doctor assessed, "Not so much a black _-_ eye, as one that is red, and purple, and brown, and green, and a little yellow right over here. Actually detective, I'd say it's not a BLACK-eye at all…" And then she giggled…

And he lifted an eyebrow at her before she even said it, for he knew she would be making a joke, probably a feeble one.

"It's a rainbow-eye, detective," she gleed, and then she wiggled at him in that flirty way she could do that so utterly fluttered his heart, _not to mention what it did to his anatomy down lower._

His hands slipped around her waist, and her arms glided up around his neck in response, as he pulled her in close. "You, milady, are seeing ' _rainbows'_ everywhere today," he said, _something so winsome about the manner of it._

Julia's sigh had an air of contentment to it, resounding as somewhat lovestruck. _She was utterly head over heels in love with this man._ "I keep seeing it, over and over in my head, my _HERO_ saving me…" she said, her hands stroking at the chiseled outlines of the muscles of his bare chest, "as I was running away, running to get to the cage door, a wild Tiger at my heels, and off to my side, almost behind me, swooping, falling, flying down from the sky, to stop the Tiger's attack, too big to be a bird, too small to be a plane, just a man, a super, super man," her eyes shimmered at him, "A brave and selfless, super hero-man."

"It wasn't brave, Julia," William took exception, reaching up and grasping one of her curls in his fingers. He exhaled, _he would disclose it._ He rubbed his thumb over the pink softness of her cheek and told, "I didn't want to live in a world without you in it, Julia. It's that simple. It filled me with peril, to imagine it. And, if I couldn't keep you in the world by taking you away from harm, then I knew I would have to destroy that harm. It was not selfless, it was selfish. What looked like courage was, at its core, only fear, profound, profound fear, so powerful it made me put every ounce of myself into the battle. That's why it seemed super-human, because it was all of me in one place, at one time, focused, maximized on the task, and that task was keeping YOU in this world."

"William," her tone suggesting scolding, "I'm heartened that you felt that way, that you _FEEL_ that way. And I know it's true. I do," her eyes tightened to his to lock in, to ensure he felt her sincerity, "But I think you don't give yourself enough credit, William. Everything in your life, you're right about that, all of it imploded together, at monumental speed, your physical strength – made you ready, think of all those workouts with your weights, and these muscles…" her fingers rode over his deltoids, down onto his biceps – _and an image of him monkey-barring across the cage ceiling flashed in her mind_ , "William, your life-experiences – a lumberjack, think of how fast you climbed up that tree, the leaping and catching and swinging from the bars on the ceiling… And William, you were a ranch-hand, never could you have expected your wild bronco to be a real-life Tiger, but YOU had the skills, and add to that your seemingly endless encounters with life-and-death, highly stressful, pivotal situations, rockets aimed at New York City, canisters of lethal gas that when unleashed kill every breathing human in the vicinity… It's amazing, YOUR ability to handle, to THINK, in situations like that. And then add in your brain, William…"

He chuckled, causing her to stop.

"I was thinking, I haven't told you yet…" he said, shaking his head, his eyes shining at her, _the topic of brains in the face of the Tiger coming up…_

"Yes?" her curiosity tingling, odd a sort of flirtatiousness to his tone.

"It was ingenious, Julia, absolutely brilliant, what you did, going under that water tub," he explained.

"Oh…" she almost whispered it, a part of her _not wanting, with all her might, to remember the horror of it so closely,_ another part of her overjoyed by having impressed him.

He pulled her back into his arms and said, "Let's just enjoy it, hmm…? While it's here. Soak in the feeling of being able to handle anything life throws our way. You and me, invincible, amazing…"

She tucked her nose into his neck, let the scent of him surround her.

"Let's enjoy the brilliant, sparkling colors the way you saw them this morning with the dawning light, and the joy of hearing William Jr.'s knock at the door. Life is a gift, and you and I are deeply in touch with that now, because of the Tiger," William urged her.

Powerfully, that call, to fully treasure each moment, to live with renewed childlike awe, made only more valuable by its being tempered with adult gratitude, rang true.

"Yes," she said in his ear… followed it with a kiss, a kiss that deepened.

William had an idea, kissing her there, the two of them getting later and later for work… " _Not just the roses and all the different colors of roses, you should buy her a necklace, too. One with crystals of every color of the rainbow – it will have to be specially ordered… I guess another trip to Ducharme's shop…!"_ he thought, unable to hide the smile on his face as he broke off their kiss, drawing her attentive, inquisitive eye…

"William?" she questioned.

"Oh… I've thought of another gift for you," his eyes centered back into hers, "Just keeping my promise, to never stop courting you," he said, so cocky, so deliciously cocky.

"Good," she said. And she gave him a quick kiss.

"Ready?" she asked, and sharing his quick nod, the couple turned to the task of getting dressed.

"We are running late, I'm afraid," she warned, shedding her nightgown, picking up the pace. But inside her chest, her heart erupted, warm and gushy, _for she couldn't possibly love him more, this super, super, man._ She giggled to herself, _this super man – in his baggy suit._

)

The beauty and magnificence of the day continued at breakfast. Eloise had brought three newspapers, all of them with frontpage headlines giving accolades for the detective's having solved the dogging Body-Dumper case. They spelled out the barebones of what had been uncovered by the investigation, for instance the Gazette's headline reading, 'Murdoch Digs Up Body-Dumper Killers – both Moles.' The stories identified both Nicholas Mole and his wife Dr. Elizabeth Mole as the two successive Body-Dumper murderers, and identified both victims, the first, the falsely thought-to-have-escaped from the Don Jail, Dr. Restell, and the second victim, also the first murderer, Nicholas Mole, at the hands of his wife. The stories also outlined the motives, Nicholas Mole's jealousy for the first killing, because he discovered that his wife was having a secret love affair with Dr. Restell, and the second was being presented by the press as self-defense, Elizabeth Mole's life in danger at the hands of her abusive husband. They even included, it being the only complaint left against Detective Murdoch's handling of the case, that the retired detective, and convicted killer, Malcolm Lamb, had also been involved in the Body-Dumper case, having chopped-up his fourth body with an axe to help Elizabeth Mole get rid of her husband's body, and that Lamb had managed to escape Constabulary custody – TWICE, they insisted on rubbing it in. It was truly a wild story, the headlines having fun, calling it " _a zoo of a case_ ," in the end, or even telling about the famous couple's harrowing encounter with the Tiger, calling the whole story " _a "Tiger" of a tale_."

William wallowed in the good news, reading out parts from the papers in between bites of Julia's favorite breakfast, French Toast. They laughed and marveled at their little son, who teased his Daddy, unknowingly, for sitting in a "baby chair," referring to William's sitting on a stool instead of his usual chair, and confusing it with his own, 'little-boy' highchair. The good cheer lingered.

The papers had agreed with Julia, heralding Detective Murdoch as a hero, and calling the couple, "not only 'Toronto's Favorite Couple,' but also the 'World's Most Courageous One." Eloise gushed about how her friends had already complimented her at the market this morning, for working for such a famous and wonderful family as the Murdoch's, and declaring, "correctly," Eloise insisted, that she must be so proud.

It was in this jolly, ecstatic mood, that the Murdoch's hopped into their shared cab, William barely poised at the very edge of the seat in order to safeguard his stitches underneath his loosely-fitting suit, that spectacular morning, that morning after the Tiger.

 **) ( Back to Work, the Day After the Tiger**

The press had thoroughly championed the "brilliant and brave detective," cheering and applauding and snapping pictures abound as he managed to step down from the carriage and offer his wife a hand. Inspector Brackenreid had been eating-up the reporters' hungry, frenzied questions before the Murdoch's had arrived. Detective Murdoch showboated, for his part, too, making the reporters wait while he retrieved something from inside his office, and coming back out to display for them, the photograph of the hippopotamus footprint taken with his innovative method of using UV photography, at first just an unidentifiable shape of a bruise found on the thigh of the first Body-Dumper victim. He reminded them that he had asked for their help six months ago, and they had published the picture of the oddly-shaped bruise, asking the public if anyone knew what it was, and that now, they finally had the answer. A hippopotamus at the Riverdale Zoo had stepped on the victim, Dr. Restell, while he was in the throes of passion with his eventual murderer's wife, a month before he had been killed.

The reporters seemed to grow tired, quickly, of Murdoch's various intricate details of the evidence in the case – flies, and worse, maggots, and irregular footprints, none as intriguing as the strange bruise, and moreover, none as exciting as the tale about his taking on a ferocious Tiger, about his heroic and storybook battle with the wild beast to rescue his 'damsel in distress.'

As a matter of fact, most of the reporters' questions were about his adventure in saving his wife from the Tiger. William remained modest in describing the event, but the Inspector marveled at what 'his man' had done, and then he added an important element to the tale, including the cleverness and courage of Dr. Ogden as well, "a remarkable woman, our coroner." One question niggled at William though, lingered in the back of his mind. It had been about the baby… A woman reporter had asked if he thought the stress of his wife's being confronted with a real, live, man-eating Tiger had caused the growing baby any harm. He had responded quickly, " _TOO quickly,"_ he thought _, on hindsight,_ "Baby Murdoch seems to be fine," he had replied. And then he had happily put his arm around Julia, and, he _remembered, an abundance of flashbulbs exploding to get the picture of the two of them together._

"A chip off the old block, then," a man had called out.

"Acorn not far from the tree," chimed in another.

Eventually, the parade disassembled, albeit for Ruby Rosevear, who would be accompanying Dr. Ogden to the morgue, anxious to get an exclusive interview with her about the whole "Tiger ordeal." Before Julia took her leave, she and her husband stepped aside, and they planned for the day. She would run the tests on the samples she had collected at the Riverdale Zoo, of the blood and the flies and the maggots, finishing up her part in tying-up the loose ends he needed in order to have the evidence supporting Elizabeth Mole's story of how events had unfolded in the case. William would spend the day in his office, "taking it easy," sitting on a stool at his work table, putting all the pieces together in an organized fashion, compiling the final report. If possible, they would go home together, early. He would try to come over to the morgue, to take her to lunch. All the while during their conversation, William plotted inside his head, _fitting in the purchasing of her flowers, and going to Ducharme's shop to order her necklace – he needed to sneak out at some point._ Just a quick kiss, _public displays of affection, and all_ , then they parted.

 **) Finishing the Case**

There was a note in with his other mail that had been left at the front desk for William. Alone in his office, he read it.

 _ **If you worry about me, in case your decision weighs heavy on your heart, I understand. More, I think you did what was right.**_ _**Sometimes, one single act can give a peek at the heart, it is not always what you expected to see, perhaps better, perhaps worse. Sometimes it is the heart of another, sometimes it is your own. I looked into mine, and I saw that I**_ _ **might**_ _ **have been valiant enough to do what you did with the Tiger, for the one that was both my Lady and my Truth, as your wife is for you. I wanted you to know, there is no grudge. Further, you have inspired me, I wanted you to know that, in the end.**_

" _It had to be from Lamb,"_ he thought, " _Malcolm Lamb had learned that Elizabeth had been charged with the murder of her husband. Lamb had begged that_ _ **HE**_ _be the one to get the blame, not her. He had pleaded to be able to save the woman he loved…"_

William rubbed at his brow, and he sighed. He placed his chin in his hand, and stared down at the note, picturing _Lamb out there, free now. No longer in prison, having had paid the price for doing what he had thought to be right for Harriet King, for following his heart for Justice, for the truth as he had seen it, and he had served out much of that sentence,_ William thought, adding his own opinion _, "probably enough of his sentence for justice to have been done. But then, there is such irony,"_ the track changed in William's brain, making him shake his head _, "first, losing Sarah Connelly, and then, now, again, losing the woman he loved in order for him to right a wrong, this time a wrong that the Lady, herself, had made, Lamb coming back to try to fix Elizabeth's wrong, to save Julia from the Tiger._ _"Oh…"_ there was an internal click, " _Maybe that's what Lamb was referring to in the note, he had seen Elizabeth's heart in that 'single act._ "

And then William's mind flung it up at him, " _logical,_ " he thought, somewhere else in his head, _"the connection,"_ and he remembered _letting Constance Gardiner out of the cells… How much it had cost him that day,_ and he felt the resurgence of that terrible, terrible sorrow and grief and hurt, _Julia walking down to the alter to marry Darcy instead of him, despite her having had told him, in that simple, beautiful, heart-wrenching note handed to him by George that day, telling him she loved HIM, not Darcy, and thus he knew that he was breaking HER heart, too, as he did it, in order to fix his mistake, to break the law to be true to what he believed to be justice, in doing so, losing Julia, sentencing himself to a life of being alone, leaving them both to an incomplete life, to have to live it through, without each other._

 _ **BAM!**_ the woman's name slammed into his head – " _Sarah Connelly!"_

It had been without a thought, William grabbed his coat, _an older one, one that had NOT been shredded to tatters by the claws of a Tiger, and his maroon scarf, and his trusty hat,_ and he ran out the door. Barely a word to explain, telling George merely that he had one final clue to check up on.

)

Julia had just barely noticed, _she was alone in the morgue_ , after the young, 'Murdoch Appreciation Society' member and news-reporter, the bubbly Ruby Rosevear, had finished her interview and taken her leave. _She shouldn't have been alone, she knew she shouldn't have been,_ for today was the day she had reached the half-way point of her pregnancy, and thus she was far-enough along now that the size of the baby was large enough to warrant a Cesarean section, in order for her to survive going into premature labor, in order for her to survive a miscarriage. And _she had promised William_ , in case she miscarried from this point forward, she had promised him, _when he had been so worried about losing her that she had found him in the middle of the night on their front porch, in his pajamas, drinking her whiskey,_ William gravely troubled, and she had reassured him that this pregnancy was safer than the one with William Jr., despite her being even more scarred this time, due to the Cesarean section surgery he had performed on her to save her and William Jr. It was safer this time because the baby was not expected in the winter when there could be a colossal snowstorm, and she would take precautions against her dying if there was an unexpected miscarriage, by Isaac agreeing to be available every hour of every day from this day on for her, and by never being alone…

She pushed away from her desk, turning the page. She prepared the blood tests to check the samples for the presence of human blood. Such a lovely memory played in her mind as she ran the tests, and she noticed, off to the side, that _she was humming_. The memory was of the case that involved William's father, and William had showed her a way to figure out if blood was human. _Their romance just blossoming then_ , they basked in that seemingly magical experience of sharing, of discovering the marvels of the world, together – _sitting side by side at her workbench, and just as William had predicted, the antibodies in the rabbit serum had reacted to the human blood cells, and a visible line had appeared across the middle of the slides where the two solutions met. He was amazing, and he smiled so gorgeously at her then… Maybe she should set up the phonograph_ , she interrupted her own thoughts.

)

There was a housekeeper who answered Sarah Connelly's door. She recognized him instantly, declaring, "Detective Murdoch…!" And then she froze there.

William nodded, and opened his jacket lapel to show her his badge, and added, "Of the Toronto Constabulary."

"Yes! Yes," the housekeeper tried to make more sense, explaining, "I have read so much about you… in the papers. Congratulations," she finally remembered something sensical to say, "You solved the Body-Dumper case! Oh!" she gasped with remembering, "And you rescued your wife from that deadly Tiger!"

"Yes," he nodded again. "Thank you," he said, "Um… Well, actually, that's why I'm here… Uh, the case, not the Tiger…" he clamped his lips together, impatient with himself.

"Oh?" the housekeeper wondered.

"May I come in?" William gestured beyond the door. "Is Miss Connelly home?" he added.

He noted it, the housekeeper's hesitation, her reluctance, in letting him in. " _Something to hide,"_ he thought.

Sometimes, _William appreciated the warmth of it_ , questioning a witness, successfully, effectively, was as much about having empathy as it was about being cunning. _It was impressive, what true, authentic compassion for someone could accomplish. He realized he had learned much of this from Julia_. Sarah Connelly's housekeeper was like Eloise in her loyalty to her mistress. And she was suffering, and conflicted, as she sat there across the little tea-table from him. William had sat so forward on the chair, keeping contact with the back of the chair to a minimum to avoid the pain it would have caused to his cut-up, shredded and stitched up, backside. _Perhaps the woman_ , Mrs. Cranston, _had felt his sitting on the edge of his seat was due to his genuine interest in her. "In that way, perhaps it had helped_ ," William observed from a corner of his mind.

 _(William Murdoch would never give himself credit for it, but it was a major aspect of what made him special, his genuine interest and caring for others in the world. He had had this trait way before he ever met Dr. Julia Ogden)._

She was despairing, for her mistress had left, "left for good," Mrs. Cranston told him, adding that Miss Connelly had left her a "bunch of money," for she would no longer be in Miss Connelly's employ, and Miss Connelly was "so very sorry for that." Her mistress had left instructions for her to contact Mr. Connelly, her mistress' brother, to let him know that Miss Connelly would no longer be living in the house. But, despite that loss, that loss of this humble housekeeper's income, and of her heartfelt connection to her employer, Mrs. Cranston smiled through her tears and her sniffles, and she told ' _the kind detective_ ' that "Miss Connelly was finally so happy, detective." She said she had "found the man of her dreams, and they were running away together." She said it was "like a fairytale. She had been alone for so long, detective, she was so lonely…" the woman accepted his handkerchief. "Miss Connelly deserved a good turn…" she nodded and readjusted his handkerchief to soak up her tears, "I truly believe that," the devoted housekeeper contested.

William stepped out of the house. He looked down the road towards the train station. Mrs. Cranston had said Sarah had left, and had headed down that way, "first thing this morning," with the man. William was certain the man was Malcolm Lamb, _Sarah Connelly's man of her dreams, her fairytale lover,_ wearing a disguise, for the man was described by the housekeeper as being "red-haired with a beard, stocky, a bit overweight," and the description was so far from one matching Malcolm Lamb's description that it practically guaranteed Lamb was the man, in William's mind. And now, William stood there, looking down that road, and flash after flash flew through his head, _his own racing on his bicycle to catch Julia's train to Buffalo, such hope and excitement in his heart…_ Then _the two of them rushing out of their wedding ceremony – married – he was married to Dr. Julia Ogden! and they rode, galloped together on horseback, to stop the killers, two lovers escaping together on the train…_ A deep breath poured into his lungs as the next image fired, dancing in the background, _an idea of fate_ , he remembered _how stunning, absolutely, breath-stealingly stunning, Julia had looked walking into that ballroom that Hew Years' Eve, at the turn of a New Century, dressed in the most beautiful, most sexy, red, velvet, dress, he had ever seen. And he knew, he knew, fate had given him a second chance! And his heart had soared so high he had to fight against the dizziness._ And William knew, he knew now, that Malcolm Lamb had just felt that exact same way with Sarah Connelly. He had been given a second chance, and he had taken it. Malcolm Lamb, too, ended up with the Lady, in the end.

William's heart felt so astoundingly light and jubilant, and he couldn't deny it, in the light of the force of those feelings, _he was happy for Malcolm Lamb. He was happy for him, he finally had his Lady_. He clamped his lips tight, and he remembered – _his own Lady_ , and he decided right there and then, _he was going to Ducharme's shop. He would buy Julia Ogden, the woman of his dreams, a rainbow._

 **) With the Help of Friends**

"Hey, bug-a-lugs," the Inspector addressed his best constable.

"Yes Inspector," George answered.

"Where'd the detective go?" the Inspector asked, George now looking more closely, noticing that _the Inspector was dressed to go out – coat, hat, and cane._

"He said he had a final clue to check on," Crabtree explained.

"I got a call from the mayor," the Inspector said, "Was going to head over there, now. Bloody talk over things with Alderman Lamb, about his son's involvement in all of this. But… I'd rather have Murdoch along with me."

Seemingly off on a tangent, Crabtree said, "It's interesting, sir. I expected the detective to be, well, you know, after all that happened to him and the doctor yesterday, I just thought he'd be sort of grumpy, you know, with all the pain he must be in…"

Brackenreid nodded, flashing in his mind to _after he was beaten to a pulp by the O'Shea's_ , "Maybe even depressed, like he had given up," he added.

"Perhaps, sir…But the detective was outright chipper, even peppy," Crabtree awed.

"Over to see his wife then, you think?" Brackenreid asked.

"Sir?" George asked.

The Inspector answered, "You said Murdoch had his coat and hat… And he was chipper and peppy – so… over to see his wife?"

"Oh, I don't think so, actually, sir. Um, Dr. Ogden called for him, just a minute ago," George replied, "It must've been a clue somewhere else," he added, generally agreeing that the detective did tend to perk up, even after all these years, when he was headed for his wife's morgue.

"Dr. Ogden likely has the final postmortem report. Like to take a trip with me to the morgue, Crabtree?" the Inspector invited, "See if the evidence fits?"

"Yes. Yes, sir. It would likely help Detective Murdoch… completing the case early, so he can head home," George answered, already up, grabbing his constable's helmet and coat.

 **) Serious Consequences**

It was the last small tray of instruments she needed to put away before lunch. _She had so hoped to have lunch with Will…_

 _ABSOLUTE, BESIEGING, SLAMMING PAIN,_

dropped her instantly to the floor…

 _BARELY ABLE TO WITHSTAND IT, AND STILL REMAIN CONSCIOUS,_

Julia hugged at her womb, _unaware of her screams._

" _ **The baby! Oh my God, the baby…!"**_ inside her head, the devastating sobs,

unheard outside, her groans in agonous, spine-stabbing pain…

 _Before the blackness moved in from all sides._

)

The big morgue door banged closed behind them. "I saw it, Crabtree, when I helped Elizabeth give it the antidote. Truth be told, that Tiger was bloody big – BLOODY big," he shook his head aweing at the remembered size of the beast, his opened hands held a wide, 12-inches apart, as if he were holding the beast's giant head in his grasp, "Even just its head… I don't truly know how he…" Inspector Brackenreid's discussion of his detective's phenomenal act with saving his wife from the Tiger stopped dead with the sight – _on the floor, the doctor was in trouble…!_

"Good Lord! Dr. Ogden?!" he called out, both men rushing to her.

"Dr. Ogden!" George too, his voice thoroughly distraught.

"Are you awake?" Brackenreid gasped _, the woman was coming to,_ "Doctor, what happened…?"

They helped her up to her feet.

The Inspector kept talking, "Felt a bit dizzy, did we?" he tried to sound calm.

"I guess… I just, I hope that's all it was," Dr. Ogden replied, her voice weak and disoriented.

With a sudden collapse at her center, Julia gasped hugely in agony, bending forward, remaining only on her feet because the Inspector held her up. "Oh!" she absorbed the stabbing pain, "George! George, go and get William! Please!" she screamed it, and she begged it, and she prayed it.

"Crabtree GO…! and meet us at the hospital," the Inspector nearly whispered his instructions, "Sharpish."

George was already gone.

The Inspector helped the doctor step forward. "Right! - And no arguments from you!" he ordered.

"No, no, you're right," Julia leaned into him, and so desperately, she fought falling apart. Tears filled her eyes.

"Put your arm around me," the Inspector told her.

She had no choice, and she was so grateful to him for being there, and she cried, her emotions raising her voice into a squeak, "We have to go right away," and she said the nightmare out loud, "There's something wrong with the baby."

"Hang in there, Doctor," Thomas tried to reassure her.

)

Barreling into the stationhouse, George stared into the detective's empty office.

"What is it George?" Henry asked him.

"Dr. Ogden! She had to go to the hospital! I have to find Detective Murdoch!" his eyes pleaded into Henry's.

"Did he say where he was going?" Henry stood from his desk to help.

"No! No, just that it was about a clue," George felt dread creeping in, making his legs feel as if they were full of lead, all of a sudden.

Henry would help, take charge. "You get the carriage ready for him. Have it out front waiting for when he gets back. I'll keep an eye out for him," he suggested.

"Good," George rushed out.

 **) In the Hospital**

Brackenreid hung back as the doctor and the nurse took Dr. Ogden away on a stretcher. He couldn't help it, his eyes gaped down at all that blood, between the doctor's legs. The reality of what was happening, _the devastation it would cause them_ , it hovered just out of his willingness to believe it.

"What period of development, Nurse?" the doctor yelled his questions out as they raced towards the operating room.

The doctor barely noticed is patient endeavoring to answer, her voice so low, "It's the 4th month. It's maternal causes. It could be uterine scarring…" Julia tried so hard to tell.

"14 weeks," the nurse answered the doctor…

And Julia shook her head, for _it was longer, longer than that…_

"Any outward signs of trauma?" the doctor asked the nurse.

"No!" _Julia was sure she screamed it_ , "It has to be internal. Everything else has been healthy."

"Has there been any interference?" the doctor considered other explanations, _perhaps she had been violated…?_

"No!" _she was in so much danger, and they were wasting time!_ "Where's William?" she asked.

"Is that your husband, dear?" the nurse finally addressed her.

 _She had been heard. She needed to tell them about Isaac!_

The Inspector, suddenly there too…

"Doctor! Doctor!" Thomas screamed after the doctor in charge, "She… Dr. Ogden, is a special case!" he panted out the essential, "Get Dr. Tash. Her doctor is Dr. Isaac Tash."

"Sir, I'm quite a competent doct…"

Brackenreid planted a hand down – hard, stopping Dr. Ogden's gurney. "I really must insist… doctor. Call Dr. Tash." The Englishman's face fired red, and his teeth grit spit, clenching tight in his mouth, and his eyes threatened violence.

"Nurse!" the doctor turned, "Do as he says."

Julia managed to grab the Inspector's hand before the doctor rushed her forward again. So quiet, so weak was her voice that Thomas had to lean down close, running to keep up, in order to hear it, "Thank you, Inspector," she thanked him, _even in this whirlwinding disaster, the woman was gracious._

And then Thomas Brackenreid watched Murdoch's wife disappear, and he felt it there, the stinging presence of tears threatening in the back of his eyes.

)

To say the man flew into the hospital would be an understatement. Brackenreid caught him, held Murdoch, stopped him from running to nowhere with his panic. " _My God,"_ the thought somewhere off in the side of his head, " _the man has flowers for her…!?"_

"Alright Murdoch! Alright…" he tried to help the distraught man, his friend, and his heart absolutely burned a hole in his chest, so that it left his speech choked up…

William was frantic, his big brown eyes flying to every corner of the hospital, looking for her. "Where is she?!" he shoved free of the Inspector's hold, "Where's Julia!?"

"They took her…" Thomas was yelling it from behind Murdoch, as Murdoch rushed towards the nearest hallway. It was just luck, just coincidence really, that it was the right one. "Dr. Tash arrived…"

That news halted Murdoch. He turned, and his eyes met the Inspector's, and in that second it seemed time stood still, and it rushed forward too, and it felt like these two men touched each other somewhere so deep inside such that, because of it, because of their connection in this moment, they would never be the same to each other, the trust now, forever unshakable. "Dr. Tash," William said.

 _So unbelievably grateful for the Inspector's nod._

"Where?" he asked, the kindness, the care, weakening him, glistening his eyes with the pooling of held-back tears.

"Down that way," the Inspector gestured down the hall, "On the right."

Crabtree ran in, just at that second. His instincts shoved him to rush to stop the detective. Brackenreid held him back, "Let him go. Let him go, Crabtree."

William was in a run when the nurse stepped out of the operating room and crossed the hall to get more towels. From inside the room William heard a man's voice – _NOT Dr. Tash…_

"She's already lost a great deal of blood," the other doctor said.

Isaac had certainly noticed that, from the second he had come in – it was startling, the implications, terrifying. And he worried, as he figured the other doctor did as well with that much blood, that Julia might have ruptured her uterine wall, for he knew, as the others _**did not**_ , that Julia's cervix was so badly scarred from her abortion years ago, back when she had almost died, that even a fetus this small could not fit through its opening.

"Nurse," Isaac instructed, "Contact my surgery, and have them send over the blood I have prepared for Dr. Ogden… Oh! And when her husband gets here, he can…"

"Julia!" William yelled it out, and cried it, and moaned it, from the door. Instantly he was at her side, his presence rousing her.

Groggy, but conscious, she whispered his name… "William…"

And he took her hand in his, and he swore to her, "It'll be alright, Julia. You've made it to the hospital. Isaac is here. He knows what to do…"

"We need to sedate her," the other doctor said, _now fully aware they would be performing an emergency Cesarean section surgery, now fully aware that it was necessary to save the woman's life, now fully aware that the baby would not survive._

"I… I…" William sputtered, helplessness caving in.

"William!" Julia whispered her cries, "Our baby. I want our baby…"

And every heart in the room broke.

"I know. I know," William brought his face down to hers and whispered it into her ear, "I know."

Her last words to him trickled out from under the anesthesia mask, the faint sweet scent of chloroform reaching his nostrils with a pungent sting as well, "I'm sorry," like a soft breeze as she let go.

)

Dr. Isaac Tash was a wise and compassionate man, and though he had his druthers about this handsome Catholic policeman his lifelong friend had thoroughly fallen for, he had come to respect the man, in some ways, he, too, had unexpectedly found himself taken by the man. He knew that William Murdoch's blood was compatible with Julia's, and even though he and Julia had planned ahead well, and already had an abundance of her own blood stored up to use, frozen and waiting, specifically for this day, Isaac still asked her husband to transfuse some of his blood for her. _Sadly_ , Isaac thought to himself, for a split second amidst the turmoil of handling the emergency, _that he and Julia had always hoped for her to use this accumulated extra blood for 'this day,' but they had also always imagined together that 'this day' would be sometime near the end of summer, rather than now, rather than too early._ He sighed, thinking it through, " _Giving his wife HIS blood would help William Murdoch cope, help him feel less useless,_ and so that's exactly what he asked Murdoch to do, occupying the distraught man with contributing to saving her, while they conducted the surgery. A spark of a thought in his brain as he walked away from Julia's husband to go back to the operating room, " _He'd probably lost a lot of blood to the Tiger… to saving Julia from the Tiger… Was that only yesterday?"_

 **) Suffering the Blow**

Julia's hospital bed looked so small, so dank, and her, " _beautiful, so very, very beautiful_ ," William thought, breathless, stuck there, at the door, _lying there like a story-tale princess_ , he thought, _like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, and all he would have to do was kiss her and then everything would be alright…_

It took such courage, such strength, to step forward, to walk to her side, to pull up the small wooden chair, to sit down, next to her, knowing she was peaceful right now, that she did _not know_ , right now, that she did not hurt so much that she felt as if her very heart had been ripped away from her soul. He had held back the tears, somehow. He had listened to Dr. Tash's report. Julia would live, she would heal. _He had not lost her,_ and yet he was so unexpectedly troubled by how devastated he felt, anyway, despite that essential factor that the love of his life had survived. _He had not expected to feel this way. He was unprepared for it. And he was terrified that he wouldn't be able to be strong enough for her, for he already knew, for Julia, for this beautiful, beautiful woman that he loved so very, very much, THIS would collapse her world._

He took her hand, the warm touch of it in his, surging the drooping from all sides of his protective walls.

And as she woke, as she turned to him, knowing he was there before she opened her eyes, _he already started to sink…_ But when she opened her eyes, when she looked at him, every drop of strength flooded to the floor. And he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her – _and she knew_ , and his heart just broke, broke more than he knew it could, and such an overwhelming force wrinkled his face into tears, and William dropped his face down into her, and he sobbed, and Julia felt the wave completely take her, drown her in the deepest, deepest sorrow, so that her body erupted into spasms of sobbing, so that their whole world shook… _their whole world shook._

)

William woke up next to her, in that too-small hospital bed, surprised he had slept. He thought to prop up on an elbow and watch her sleep, stroke her and love her and care for her while she slept, but the beginning of the movement screamed the stitches, the Tiger slashes on his back, and for a second, he froze with the pain.

"William?" Julia stirred, still sleepy.

He leaned down close to her. "Shh. Shh," he soothed in her ear, kissed at her skin. "Just sleep, Julia," he talked her back to sleeping. _The Sun was still up. He needed to call Claire-Marie_. _She would have to spend the night in the guest bedroom to be there for William Jr. He would not be coming home tonight._ He remembered _the Inspector… and George,_ wondered if they were _still out there waiting_. Stealthy, slow, quietly, he slipped out from under her covers, out of the bed, brought the covers up over her shoulders, to tuck her in.

 **) Meeting Mary**

Dr. Tash walked at his side. They were going to see the baby, the tiny, little baby girl, who had never been born. She waited there, alone. Cleaned-up, wrapped in a baby-delivery blanket, like a live baby, despite the rolled eyes from the nurse, because Isaac Tash knew the parents would want to see her, well, at least, he expected so, and he knew that they imagined her as a child, one that needed to be cared for, to be loved.

The lights were off in the prep room, only spilled light in the air, the dimness fitting.

" _So small_ ," the first thought as the dark was taken away by the click of the light switch.

Isaac would wait, let the detective move forward when HE was ready.

"We named her Mary," he told, "Mary Susannah." His voice choked-up, "My mother's name, Mary… my sister's, Susannah. Both passed on now."

"It's a lovely name," Isaac offered.

 _Ready now,_ William walked up to the bundle, temporarily lying on an operating tray. With more attention and awareness than usual, slower, perhaps, William crossed himself. Thoughts poured through him. " _She had a face! My God, she had a face, distinct, unique – only Mary Susannah Murdoch in all the world with that face_ ," his heart cried, for it was a profoundly, devastatingly, beautiful and lifeless, face. And a part of his brain told him, _he would need to bury her_ , _bury his innocent, tiny, unborn little girl, so small, so still – like a doll._ And then out of nowhere with a wham, THE REVOLTING MEMORY CREPT INTO HIS BRAIN, striking a spine-tingling chord in him, like a lightning bolt's flickers uncovering a nightmare as being real, instantly the aversive, disgusting, nauseating terror of seeing, for that first earthshattering moment, _JAMES GILLIES' TINY, LITTLE, WHITE COFFIN… and then of hearing Julia's voice in that doll that had been inside of that tiny toy coffin, as he pulled the string, her panicked desperation inside that lifeless doll – "No don't…" – pleading, horrified, begging not to be buried alive by the monster, and the wave of nausea forced him to turn away, to bend over and fight against the upward surge of bile tasting, acid-burning, slimy, cottony eruption that gagged in the back of his throat._

Isaac placed a hand to his shoulders as William held back the heaves, and, for a second, he remembered _vomiting, just yesterday, after the Tiger._

"I'm sorry… that it's so hard," all Isaac could think to say.

" _Breathe,_ " William coached himself, so pleasantly, the inner-voice reminding him of Julia, " _Just breathe. Take a breath. It will pass._ "

He straightened up. "Thank you…" he took another breath, deeper, "I'm alright… I'm alright now," he said, feeling his strength coming back. He looked back to their unborn child. There was a quick flash, _he had encountered this before,_ as he remembered _finding the buried newborn in the rosebushes of his Church – the remains of that child, just a skeleton. That baby had been buried in a small box, never baptized, its mother beyond distraught._ "May I…" he swallowed down the tears that threatened to rise, "May I hold her?" he asked.

Isaac carefully lifted the bundle of the child off of the operating tray, so small. The tall man held it like a baby, like you should hold a baby, but awkwardly, for she was too small to be cradled in his two arms. William extended his arms out for her, and Isaac handed the child to her father, and he put his face down close, and he was catapulted by it, wholly unexpected, the smell of her, shooting directly to his heartstrings, his baby. William's voice trembled as he said, "Sweet Mary, my beautiful sweet girl. You are so precious, so very precious," and William kissed her, tenderly, his lips to his daughter's face, and tears that could not be held at bay, flowed, the salty waters of her father's tears, touched, blessed, the unborn child's forehead with his kiss. _SHE had been loved. SHE was valuable. SHE was cherished. SHE would have been the apple of her daddy's eye. SHE would have filled her mommy's world._

"Do you want to take her to Julia?" Isaac asked. _My God, he felt it buckle his knees when the detective looked up into his eyes, the beauty, the pain there._

William knew, felt it in both the present and the future, _the hurt would be unbearable._

"Yes," he answered.

)

Isaac stayed outside of the room, when Julia's husband brought her unborn daughter to her. He told himself it was more compassionate to let them have such a potent and powerful moment to themselves. He stood there now, acknowledging the other truth, the other reason he stayed away, that he wasn't sure he could withstand seeing Julia hurt so badly.

After a time, Isaac knocked, and came into the room. _Julia still held the child. She had been crying, but seemed,_ he thought, _to have cried out all of her tears_. Wise, he avoided discussing the emotional. Instead, he shared with the couple the medical. "There was a small tear in the uterus," he said, and the room seemed to sigh with relief for being on the firmer ground of the scientific. "The tear was along the old scar, um, the one you made, Detective," his eyes met William's, "But not a reflection on your sutures, I assure you."

William nodded, choosing to believe Dr. Tash spoke the truth rather than placated.

"It was easily repaired," Isaac continued. "You should heal well, Julia," he looked to his long-time friend. His quick glances, from the detective, back to Julia, told that the next topic would be more troublesome. "But…" Isaac took a breath preparing, "There was more damage, err, we added more scar tissue, this time, to what had been there from before. Your womb… Julia, it will be extremely unlikely now, much more so than before, um, even more than after you had William Jr… This amount of scarring will significantly hinder secure implantation and fetal development. Thus, it is unlikely you will be able to become pregnant in the future. I would say, now, you truly are…"

Julia interrupted, her doing so suggesting that she could handle it, she said, "Sterile," she wrinkled a corner of her mouth, _Isaac noticed her look to her husband, not to him_. And her eyes flooded with tears. She said it again, more solemn this time, "Now, I am, most definitely, sterile."

Isaac moved on to something else. "You will need to stay here for about two weeks…"

"My study!" Julia suddenly remembered aloud. "Isaac, I've already spent half a year on it…"

William interjected, "At the Body Farm, on the first day of each season…"

"The Spring Equinox is just a few days away. We must collect the data…" Julia explained, her eyes urging him as a fellow doctor and scientist, hoping he would understand her concerns.

"No," Isaac said pointedly, shaking his head.

But, Julia Ogden was Julia Ogden after all, heartbreaking miscarriage, traumatized by a Tiger, or not. And so, it was only a few exchanges later, and with some support from her husband, that it was agreed that she would take her University class to the Body Farm that day, Julia giving that she would spend every moment possible taking it easy in a wheelchair, and that the very capable, Detective William Murdoch would be with her every step of the way, helping her run the class. He would be with her, ensuring she didn't overdo.

William _wanted to ask, but found it terribly difficult to do so, about resuming their lovemaking_. He hedged around the subject, "When Julia does come home… after two weeks staying here…?" and his big brown eyes held so strongly to hers, and he paused, hoping…

"Oh!" Julia got it with a start. She nodded to him, and she couldn't help herself, she giggled… _And it felt so odd to do such a lighthearted thing, and then, suddenly, the still, cold infant in her arms became so present,_ and a myriad of conflicting emotions poured through her, and she froze, and she knew she couldn't, just couldn't…

"Sorry," William rushed to say, seeing the changes rush over her face, and he stepped to her bedside and sat next to her. "Sorry," he said, placing a hand to cup over the blanketed head of his only daughter in the whole world, lifeless, cuddled in his wife's arms.

"It's alright, William," she so quickly corrected his guilt, his regret. " _He had done nothing wrong,"_ she told herself… "There's no need to be sorry," she looked into his face, and felt the tear trickle down her cheek, and sniffled as he so tenderly wiped the tear away.

William leaned in and kissed her cheek, treasuring the sincerity of the saltiness. "You should sleep," he said quietly.

"Yes," she agreed, offering him the baby.

)

The detective held the remains of the tiny still born as Dr. Tash took him back to the prep room. " _Why not to the hospital's morgue,_ " his brain conjured up the question as they walked in silence. He knew the answer – their Mary Susannah had never been alive, she had never gotten old enough to be treated like a person. William needed to know, so he cleared his throat, out of the corner of his eye, catching Dr. Tash's sidewards glance. He asked, "What will happen with… with her remains?"

"Well…" Isaac felt a tweak of worry, for _the topic was dreadful_ , and what he had to say would be deeply troublesome. " _They needed to know, though,"_ he thought to himself _, and he already suspected, that what usually happens, and what would happen with THIS couple, would be very different._ "Ahem," he too needed to clear his throat, "Normally, um, the remains are handled as medical waste."

The detective's voice gave away the fact that he had teared up. Shocked, he stammered, "Medic… medical waste!?" The burden buckled him for a moment, stopping their walking. "Our bab… No!" his head shaking…

And Isaac felt himself caught by the beauty of the man's eyes pooled with tears once again…

"You can't let them! Please. Please. I'll talk with Julia," he swallowed, rushing, "Please. You must make them wait… wait until I can talk with her…"

It was only when Isaac reassured him, said to him, "Yes, I've already prepared for… I promise you, I've informed the staff that her parents would be taking her…" that their walking forward resumed. "Um…" his eyes dropped down to the bundle in the detective's arms, and he continued, "We arranged where in the prep room I should leave her, until later. You will need to… um, later…"

"Yes," William made himself breathe, "Yes. Thank you. Thank you for everything."

Oddly, Isaac considered bringing up the earlier awkward topic to better to connect with Julia's unique husband, certain that he understood what the modest man had been trying to enquire about back in the room. "You and Julia should avoid…" he found it harder to find his wording than he had expected… "Err… uh… You asked about… marital relations, um… after… when she gets home…"

The detective looked into his face, wondering. Isaac watched as his face change… "Oh," he said, first with a lit-up brightness, immediately flooded over with blushing and turning away. His eyes down to the floor ahead of them, William said, his voice scratchy with the awkwardness, "Yes, um… I was wondering how much time?" He swallowed, hoping that was enough.

"Julia will have postpartum bleeding…" Isaac informed, "Certainly not before that has ceased. I'd say, at a minimum, a month," he concluded, "perhaps six weeks."

William clamped his lips together – understood. He nodded as they walked, "Thank you," he said.

 **) An Epic Fight**

 _In case she was sleeping_ , William was quiet at the door. Their eyes met across the room. He nodded to her, walked across the room, stopping to take off his shoes, then came over to sit on the edge of the bed, one knee bent up on the mattress, aiming his body to hers. _If not for the gashes on his back, he would have laid down, pulled her to him, to rest her head down on his chest…_

She sensed he had something difficult to say. She sat up. He helped, propped her pillow up behind her. "Is there something on your mind, William?" she asked.

"We need to decide… what to do…" William rubbed at his brow, "about burying Mary Susannah."

"I see. Of course," Julia answered him, again surprised the burn of the pain could hurt this badly, so badly to seem to steal away her breath.

William sidled closer, wanting the intimacy. "We…" _too hard_ , he stopped. He blew the building pressure out through pursed lips. "I think we cannot… perhaps we cannot," his eyes pleaded into hers.

"What is it, William?" she sensed he needed a push.

"We may not be able to bury her at all," he pushed out the unthinkable.

"William?" she clasped his hand.

He needed to explain. "She was not baptized, cannot be baptized, so according to the Church, she has…" the intolerable thought choked him with tears, "She has no soul…" his eyes flooded, "Our baby… she has no soul, so she cannot be buried in consecrated ground. We can't bury her…" he pushed so hard to get those words out, and before he allowed himself to breathe, before he fueled the smoldering, unbearable pain he knew waited in his chest, his voice rose into a squeaky finality, _an image of Gillies' doll-coffin stuck in his mind_ , "There won't be any tiny coffins…" before he yielded, he sucked in the air, and the searing pain forced his shaky sobs.

 _Every molecule in her body wanted to take away his pain_ , her hands rushing to hold his face. Julia felt a chill run up her spine with his words, _so unlike him, to give-up so easily on something so important,_ all she could think of it. And although there was no doubt that that was true, that the words William spoke did not match with the man she knew, it seemed so much more out of place than that, so much heavier… _And the 'tiny coffins…'_ the words seemed to spiral in and bury down, deeper and deeper, into her – _there was significance there…_

"Perhaps we need to admit she will not be accepted into the Catholic Church, William," she said, wrinkling a corner of her mouth, for she was certain such a thing would feel excruciating to him, "But perhaps we could bury her in a municipal cemetery…"

William had regained some of his composure. He took a breath, released a big exhale, trying to calm down, trying to find reason. Emotion however, sounded in his voice as he said, "She does not belong there, Julia. She would know no one. There would be no one waiting for her, to guide her…"

Having no answers, Julia stuck with him, nodded.

"I wanted her to have someone," he continued explaining, "My mother. Perhaps Susannah. She needs… I wish… I wish my mother could be there for her… We could take her to Nova Scotia…" he brightened.

"William," Julia's heart crying in her chest, she reminded, "Did you not say…? She can't be buried there… either… not without being baptized?"

He nodded, and the tears breached those long lashes of his and spilled and poured down his cheeks. "I had wanted," his voice so scratchy and defeated, "I had wanted her to go to Heaven, Julia…"

And now her tears flowed too…

"…to be with her grandmother, so she wouldn't be alone," he wrinkled his face at her, bearing the agony of knowing it could not be.

Both William and Julia paused there with the same recent memory replaying in their heads, of _the guardian angel shadow puppet up on William Jr.'s ceiling, and the promise to their little son, that he would never be alone._

Julia shook her head, fighting against the grief. _Perhaps there was no recovery from this…_ And her defenses kicked in, and the emotions inside of her erupted, fired, and most vividly exploding outward was the strongest one, anger. Her hands released his face, "What kind of God would do this, William?! Make the so improbable, the nearly impossible, possible!?" she asked, and, _not intending it_ , Julia coped by finding blame, "HIS Church, _YOUR_ Church, judges us, ME, with their stodgy ancient ideals of women and marriage…"

And William's eyes, _unnoticed by her_ , dropped down to the mattress in an effort to hide from her shaming and scolding…

Julia steamed on, "…So that we are deemed unfit to parent even an orphan. And then, this _GOD_ , this GOD of yours, lets me, lets us, manage to get pregnant, when medically it shouldn't happen at all. It defies all odds, and then, then…" her anger turned to hurt, and her voice rose into a squeak, "to take that miraculous, wonderful, beloved baby girl away from us, and not even allow her a soul. It's cruel, William…!" she pleaded, then the thought fired out of her seemingly from nowhere, so oddly, "Not to mention those damned kittens," the blow landing directly in her womb, "How could you accept that and still believe…!?"

And then there was an inhale, inside of her a grasping, and with it an abominable hurt, "Unless you think it's God's punishment, for me, because of my abortion…" _and a part of her reminded that, sometimes, SHE felt it was so, also, and that part of her urged her to TELL HIM HOW SORRY SHE WAS TO HAVE COST THEM THEIR LITTLE GIRL,_ and that _hurt so badly that she couldn't survive it_ , and so she became indignant, and _furious with HIM for believing in such a rigid and strict, and just-plain-wrong, life-crippling religion in the first place…_

And William's eyes lifted, _so shocked, so exposed…_

And then she asked him, fiery and angry, "How could you? How can you still, believe in a God that would do that, do this, to us?

The sting, the whirling, ' _no words_ ,' the loss-of-so-much, the unfathomable aching stunned him, left William speechless, his expression pulling at her heartstrings. Open, his mouth, trying to say something, his eyes re-filled with tears. _He was holding his breath_ … His expression so blank, _she could not read it,_ behind the mask, a tornado of thoughts, contradicting each other, amplifying each other, outwardly giving her nothing, his sense of betrayal wounding him, spiraling down deeper and deeper, that she, she who loved him, she who had _converted_ to Catholicism to embrace _"all of him_ ," who had vowed, before his own priest, _not_ to interfere with his practicing of his Faith, that she would be faulting God instead of herself – that she would think so little of him for believing in a God who she sees as being only cruel and insidious.

"I'm sorry," Julia huffed the apology, rendering it useless, except to tell that she still felt her anger. "It just infuriates me, your…" _she fought the word_ , tightening her throat around it to keep it down, " _God-damned…"_ Julia paused with her battle, knowing on a deeper level _she so very much wanted not to hurt him, not to hurt him… more…_ "Your Catholic Church, and its rules and its judgements…" _Oh, how she wanted to throw something, or slam something, and she was trapped in this stupid bed, the helplessness only enraging her more_ , until it exploded as a punch down onto the mattress between them. "So, because of your _STUPID_ religion, we won't bury our little girl, then…" she charged him, sarcastically, "…our soulless baby daughter. We'll just leave her here in this cold hospital, all alone, for some nurse to..."

William looked more surprised than she did, when the words flew out of his mouth, accusatory, not quite connected to her attack on him, taking them off of the shaky topic of his religion, onto more stable ground for them, "It is a crime Julia, an illegal and horrendous crime!"

And there was a moment, a short-lived moment, when ' _IT,' when this 'crime' he spoke of, could have been the burying of an unbaptized child in a Catholic cemetery, or the discarding an unborn child with hospital waste…_ _possibly…_ before it became obvious to her that it was not, for, _to William Murdoch, 'crimes' are against laws, not against sacraments, nor against parental, sympathetic, instincts_ , and so the 'crime' he had meant could not have been the one they were contemplating committing by burying their unborn child with her grandmother in Nova Scotia, nor the one 'the nurse' might be guilty of in throwing their unborn baby out like medical waste. Further, _the weight of it told her that this was not about 'now.'_ _Based on how upset William was, it had to be about something deeper, something that had been at the_ _root of their relationship since the beginning._ _It had to be what WILLIAM saw as 'the crime' that had caused ALL of this._ And after that fleeting moment had passed, Julia knew _she had called it right a moment ago – it WAS her abortion._ And Julia also knew that _William tended to lag behind her, when feelings were spoken of between them, especially when so heatedly. And so_ , she reminded herself that _further back in their conversation, or was it more her 'rant,' he must have been stung by her asking him if he thought their Mary's death, now, was God's punishment for that 'crime,' – HER 'crime,' that SHE had committed back then. And HE had said it, when his delayed words finally made it to the surface. Finally, it was clearly out in the open_ , like a fault from an earthquake in the ground, widening the chasm between them.

 _Tears tingled at the back of her throat._

William sat there stunned, a part of his brain _screaming at his own hypocrisy_ , reminding himself that _HE had begged her to commit that same 'crime,' twice – that HE had asked her to abort both of their children…_

"Well," Julia's voice pierced with its anger, and she leaned forward to plant her fuming face closer to his as she seethed, "Not only is it a STUPID religion… THAT law, is also a STUPID law, William!"

And from somewhere deep inside of him, he was called to battle, leaning into the fury, "It is a moral law, Julia! One that you broke!" he said, _for there WAS the difference between them, he had wanted it, yes, but she had actually done it…_

"I followed my conscience! And I would do the same 100 times over," she asserted.

"Meaning you have no moral misgivings on the subject?" he upped the ante, pushed for the deepest of truths, finding the impassioned fight between them felt brand new, though he knew somewhere inside of himself, _that they had been through this before_ , tweaking in the background with an air of déjà vu.

"That's right! That's exactly right," Julia held. _Despite the fact that she, too, had reservations, fuzzy, pushed aside for now, yet those reservations poked at her, for she did, she did have, somewhere inside, doubt. If she had not, then it would not have been so excruciatingly difficult to decide to have the abortion, back then._

"You believe that there is nothing amoral about ending an innocent child's life? That it doesn't matter if it lives or dies? That it isn't a child if it isn't born yet?" he got to the crux of the matter.

 _He had gone too far, the wound unbearable…_

"William, you can't possibly believe I didn't think of our baby as a baby…" the hurt of it debilitated her. She swirled, _so abandoned, so alone. There would be no holding back these tears_. "We both wanted that baby, William. You know… You know how much I wanted her. You can't really believe this is all my fault!? That God is punishing _US_ for the abortion _I HAD_ years ago?!" she pleaded and yelled.

William's stare back at her held steady, he did not deny it. The collapse gave way inside of her as she withstood it, absorbed it. _Unmanageable…_

"Get out," quietly she said it.

William's eyes widened. _Serious now, deadly serious…_

Julia pointed to the door, "If that's what you really believe, then you should just GET OUT!" she screamed.

He stood from the bed, but didn't move fast enough, prompting her to punch wildly at the mattress and scream it louder and louder until he was out, and the door was shut behind him, "Get OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

)

He was more than halfway down the hall before he realized he was in stocking feet, and only had on a shirt and trousers. His sadness deepened, as he explained it to himself, " _you were going to slip into bed with her…"_ Worse, he was bursting with the need to fall apart, to sob, to sob so that it feels like the inside of you rips out to the outside of you. _Into the stairwell… Not out of the building, too many people._ " _Up! Go up… to the roof,"_ the inner-voice coached.

)

She had stopped her crying by the time George knocked at the door, at that moment bolstering herself, telling herself, that _she had lived without William Murdoch for years, and she could do so, now, as well._

George's face melted to near tears at the sight of her. "Doctor… Dr. Ogden. I'm so sorry for your loss," he offered immediately, his constable's helmet awkwardly clasped in his hands.

"Thank you, George," she pulled the blanket up to better cover herself. "I'm so grateful you and the Inspector were there," she added. An impulse distracted inside her head, with a part of her trying to actually find the words to ask him to _please go get her some whiskey_. But then the idea came, with a secret, whispered urgency that rendered it utterly compulsory, " _Send him to find William instead…"_

)

Teeming rain, blew, splattered into his face, as William pushed the sticky hospital roof-door opened against its unused hinges. Such fog, as he stepped out, where the snow had just recently been. " _Sublimation,_ " he told himself, grounding, trying to be alright by connecting directly with the physical world around him, " _A special phase-change, direct, more rare, from solid ice straight to foggy vapor, so much heat that there is never a liquid phase at all…"_ And he rolled his eyes at himself, for he had rushed down a tangent thought, _that he was like the water molecules, he and Julia, for they had been strongly, solidly bonded together, and it had taken such a monumental force to fling them apart so rapidly, and now they were just blowing in the wind, separate, apart, desperately lost and alone…_

He walked to the short wall at the hospital roof's edge, affording a misty view of the smoggy city, the whole world cloaked in a grayish-green hue as the cloud-blocked and unseen Sun had grown low in the sky. There was a slippery taste of water in his mouth as streams of raindrops ran down his hair and over his face. The fight he had had just had with himself a minute ago, in the stairwell, to hold his collapse at bay, seemed far away now. And there was an inkling of a thought, a reminder, a worry – _"You shouldn't get your stitches wet…"_ But, he was already soaked to the bone, for this was that _type of downpour that always made him think of Noah and the Ark, that tended to fill him with a sense of catastrophe…_

" _Kittens…?"_ the word intruded. Unavoidable, William thought back to their enormous fight… to Julia's explosion, her utter meltdown. _"Kittens…?"_ the illogical word from the fight intruded again. Splitting paths in his brain, one track recognizing a verbal connection between the words, 'kittens,' and Noah's deluging 'CAT-astrophe,' and with the discovering of the double-entendre, there was a trickle of hope that he felt as he thought to himself that _Julia would have enjoyed the pun_. But the other path in his brain dominated, overpowered, the happier feeling, this track explaining the reason she had said the strange word in the first place, this path taking him through a memory… _from just this morning…?! Dumfounding, the passage of so much in such a short time_. _Julia had used 'kittens' this morning, to trigger William Jr.'s remembering of what it felt like to hold the tiny, furry little kittens, discovered in a box at Church one Sunday, to help such a young child grasp the concept of the small size, of the 'babiness,' of the human baby growing inside her womb._ And he had gone full circle, arriving back at the loss of their baby, and once again, William Murdoch was instantly overcome with torrents of sobbing.

" _Get out! Get OUT! GET OUT!"_ he reheard her yelling at him, for the umpteenth time. And with that, William clenched his jaw at himself, so furious with himself that he began to pound his fist down onto the brick wall… "She just lost her CHILD!" he reprimanded himself, "Your child! You are supposed to be there for her! Care for her! Instead, you hurt her…!" And he drew back his leg, winding up for a thundering kick, only remembering _his socks – NOT wearing shoes,_ at the last second, holding back enough not to break his toes as he cracked his unprotected foot into the brick wall, the slam of the blow hurting so much he screamed out in pain, and he felt even more like an idiot, a complete idiot, but there was, too, a sweetness in having had deserved it. Shame dropped him down to his knees in the pouring rain to sob in a huddled puddle. "Oh my God, you hurt her. You hurt her…" he shook violently with his sobs.

And then he remembered _Julia's blaming God for this pain_ , and then _her thinking him "stupid" for believing, for believing something that was so much a part of who he was that to remove it would mean the death of his soul._ His anger at her stirred. And he thought _that perhaps they were too far apart to mend it,_ and his face wrinkled with the tremendous loss, and the quakes of falling apart overcame his body once more.

And then he remembered, saw it in his mind – _the tree, the tree he had found that day when he was just a young man, in the horse pasture, with the fencepost and the barbed-wire that had been wholly incorporated into its being,_ the tree's trauma of encountering the fence taken in, becoming a part of it, through and through, the tree growing around the intrusion, making the tree irregular, different from other trees, bumpier and knottier in places. _It had adapted. It had survived. It had green leaves, it grew another ring each year. Its roots soaked up water_. _The wonderful whooshing sound and the silvery waves of the rustling of its leaves in the breeze still so clear, so settling,_ as he remembered _looking up into the branches and limbs._ William stood up there on the roof, caught his breath, swiped at the tears, unfindable amongst the rain, on his face.

 _Trees had always touched him, for they seemed to have a soul, a special meaning, for they stretch, they encourage one to stretch, they reach higher, and dig deeper, and they extend, see, so much time. He remembered Newton's apple tree, teaching, showing a human who was open to its teaching about gravity. And it was a cherry tree, wrongly chopped down in its glory, by a very young George Washington, which had taught him the value of the truth. William had always believed, there was magic in the trees. Even the Buddha had found enlightenment while sitting under the bodhi tree._

And he felt a shift inside of him, black and white, the lines between them, becoming blurred, fuzzier, for he _refused to see Julia as bad,_ and so he strained, strained at the periphery to spot the lighter places, the good that he was certain was there. Starting at the center, he would work his way out, " _True, she had criticized God, disparaged all of Catholicism, blamed God for taking away Mary…"_ but from there he needed to move towards the edges…

" _Was this really all about fault, about finding blame? After all, he had done it too, laid blame, even said it… He had blamed her abortion, essentially blaming Julia for their loss… And there was a hypocrisy with that that could not be denied…"_ he tried to balance, but still, just finding the bad, the bad in her, the bad in himself, he couldn't seem to get out of the maze.

A question that one of the reporters had asked this morning flew into his mind, and he thought to himself then _, "You could even blame the Tiger… And if the Tiger, then really Elizabeth Mole… And if Elizabeth Mole, then Nicholas Mole, for beating her… And who knows what happened to Nicholas Mole, to make him so prone to violence and bullying…" And suddenly everything in the world felt connected to everything else, and the nausea, the pounding in his head,_ that hit him, barreled him over as he tried to grapple with it all.

 _But THIS, this loss…It brought everything else to a sudden, halting, breathless stop._ And William's mind flashed his memory of his first seeing that little, unbelievably tiny, baby, _with Mary Susannah's face, with that sweet, sweet face_ , and he felt the wallop of the sorrow all over again. And right behind that unbearable sorrow, so fast that it was sensed more than seen, he remembered _Gillies' tiny toy coffin_ , and then the decimating terror and guilt punched him in the gut as he imagined _burying his baby girl with the monster – with the devil,_ so awful that his awareness of the memory and the thoughts never wholly materialized, William's mind protecting, just telling him, " _Too much, too much… It's all too much…_ " as the details evaporated away.

He blew the pressure out through his pursed lips. " _Look at the people down there… at the horses and the carriages. Amazing, nothing stops, even in this rain…"_ he tried to distract himself with the scene below. _Another tree, a different tree, emerged before him in his mind's eye,_ and his face wrinkled with the resurgence of his crying, but these tears were different for they came because he had found the good, _healing instead_ , warmer, slipperier, saline, for the tree he saw in his mind was _their 'Heart Tree,' in the park, overlooking the spot where they had first kissed on the picnic blanket, the tree in which his arborglyph declared his love of Julia Ogden for all of time_. And William filled with certainty then, _he and Julia would survive this._

He hadn't heard the man behind him open the roof-top door and approach, causing a startle when he called, "Sir…"

"George?" William replied as he turned.

A compassionate man, and a tough one, George Crabtree had not flinched at the weather. Already, trickling paths of rainwater cascaded down over his face. He instinctively held his helmet facing upwards so that it wouldn't fill up, like a bowl, with water.

To George, being confronted with the beaten-down and weary state of the man he adored, more than any other he had ever known, thoroughly tore at his heart. "Sir," he repeated, and suddenly words became difficult.

William wrinkled a corner of his mouth at him, and honestly, there was no need, between these two men, to speak. They both knew that the loss of this child had landed with a debilitating blow.

George exhaled, and he felt it, fierce, the ache burning in his chest. A moment, then a nod, and George turned his attention over the small wall, to the vast, cloudy world out there beyond the hospital.

William too, turned, and the two men stood next to each other looking out over the edge of the roof in the pouring rain.

George spoke first. "She said you had no shoes…" he still looked out, "So we knew you would have to be in the building somewhere."

Regret in his tone, for now he knew that Julia had sent George to find him, and that meant that _she was suffering horribly too from their fight,_ William explained, "I lost my temper… Said some things," he sighed. "She did too," he added, thinking that _perhaps, she had done so much more so than he had._

"Who hasn't done that?" George encouraged.

William sighed, deep and burdensome. "Some things we may even each believe… deeply hurtful things," he admitted.

"Well, sir," George reasoned, "What's more important to you? The things you believe in, or her?"

The hesitation before his answer was not to provide time to think about the answer. _William already knew the answer._ He was in the process of, he had been previously trying to work out, finding _THE WAY_ to do it… "Both," William said, because it was impossible to live without either, without his religious beliefs, nor without his love for her.

"Well…" George placed his dripping-wet constable's helmet on his head, "If you'll beg my pardon, sir, perhaps you should find out if those two things could exist together," he said it plainly.

There was a hint of a smile from William, so odd how it could coincide with a frown. "Another mystery for me to solve, eh George?" he said, digging at himself, and making solving it feel possible at the same time.

George chuckled, "Well, you don't need to be William Murdoch to solve this one, sir – She's the one for you. You know it. I know it. Even Higgins knew it… years ago, actually, when he made you shoot up the blue liquid in the tube when you were hooked-up to your Truthilizer…"

"That he did," William agreed. _But he had reservations, because such a man as George Crabtree_ , William believed, _could not grasp the significance, the essentialness, the intrinsic value to him, of his Faith, either…_

 _Less lost in thought now_ , the sound of the roof-door opening behind them sufficed to make them both turn to see.

"Dr. Tash?" William said first, surprised, having not expected to be found by even one person, not to mention TWO.

Isaac was less willing to step out into the downfall. "Julia said you were upset… and without shoes. You weren't with the baby… There are only so many places in the hospital… I doubted, with the rain, though," he admitted.

William and George crossed over the flooded roof to join him, stepping in out of the rain. All eyes dropped to ponder William's soppy socks.

"It's... It's getting late, detective," Isaac got to the point, "We, um, we need to…" Isaac became annoyed with his own gawky hedging. _Why was he so thrown by dealing with this man's sorrow? "Spit it out, Isaac,"_ he scolded at himself, " _Be direct. Direct is not unkind_ ," he reminded himself. " _Detective, may I suggest we take your baby's remains…"_ he tried planning one way to start, but Isaac needed to look away, for he had seen, seen from the pain he saw there in those remarkable big brown eyes, that the detective understood exactly what he was trying to say… Isaac kept his eyes aimed down the staircase, "I was thinking, Julia's morgue. She has a cold room there…"

"Yes," William nodded, and clamped his lips tight, an effort to withstandthe image of _that tiny little baby alone in such a place._

)

Isaac and George would be waiting for him with Mary. William slowly turned the knob on the door to Julia's room. He was sneaking. _She was asleep._ He slipped his vest, and then suit jacket, over his drenched shirt. " _Shh,"_ he shushed himself in his head. Disgusting, the slimy, sloshy, swollen feeling of his soaking-wet stocking feet being stuffed into his shoes. Hat in hand, coat draped over his arm, he tiptoed back over to the door. His fingers covered the doorknob…

"Don't go…" Julia's voice, scratchy, behind him…

And somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered " _yesterday she had lost her voice, screamed for her life," from underneath the water tub, under the skin-crawling metallic digging of the Tiger's claws screeching out seemingly everywhere,_ and he felt the _slashes twinge at his back_ … And he thought that _he just didn't have the strength to turn around…_

"I should **not** have questioned your Faith, William. It's a part of you, and I love you, William, all of you, and I'm sorry, truly sorry," she said.

William stayed at the door, his back to her, fingers around the doorknob. He did not answer her. _He could not answer her. He needed more time._

Julia felt her eyes becoming hot – _she was going to cry_. "I know this won't make much sense at first," she said…

 _He could hear she was beginning to cry…and there was a forceful wrenching in his heart._

Julia's voice deepened as she continued, for the story was long, but it had a point. "I was thinking. Remember the ceiling that almost fell on me…? We had a case… A body fell onto a stage. They were doing the play that you don't speak its name…"

 _There_ , William had expected her to giggle _, to tease him with the reminder of his clumsiness in dealing with the highly dramatic actors_ , and the lack of that peppery laughter sounding reminded him of where they were… The missing giggle, it hurt.

Julia had gone on, "And you and the Inspector were up in the rafters, and part of the ceiling fell…"

William remembered. He definitely remembered. _It was Shakespeare's Macbeth_. His own tears temporarily avoided, he wondered after what could possibly be relevant about this story…? _The puzzle of it soothed the panic and the bone-tiredness._

Julia went off on a tangent. She hadn't noticed it yet. "And you asked me for a photograph… so you could use it to trick the suspects into holding it, by answering whether they had ever seen 'your suspect.' It was magnificent, William… a trick to get their fingermarks…"

The photograph appeared in his mind – _beautiful, Julia Ogden was incredibly beautiful…_

"And you kept it," she said.

There was a pause. William wondered, for a second, _if the story had not been a ploy to get him to ask her, for he was surely tempted, "What was the point?"_

"I should have known from that case, William, that case with the vagrant, unknown actor needing to be buried in a grave of his own rather than, as his murderers had decided, that of the man that their star had stabbed, that properly burying someone is extremely important to you, putting someone to a proper rest. I want it too, for our baby. I do. But I know it's something that will haunt you much more than it will me, if we don't get it right," she said.

And he remembered _standing next to her back then, in front of the murdered and impoverished Eddie Green's headstone, back before they had admitted to each other, nor to themselves, that they were in love. He had shyly glanced into her eyes, knowing then that she had seen him for who he truly was._

Every muscle in his body wanted to turn around to face her, but imagining _putting that tiny, tiny baby in a coffin, in the ground,_ it just terrified him, and it hurt so badly, and he had begun to cry, and so he would not turn.

There were sounds, a groan – _she was getting up out of the bed._

Out of breath from the effort, Julia's voice was closer behind him, "That victim, in that case, he was unknown, had no family. YOU had his headstone made for him, very costly to you, on your salary, you did that, William. It was that important to you."

The meaning of the story connected, clicked. It made sense now. William's face still to the door, he felt himself trembling. He was so troubled, and _if he could just turn around, he wouldn't be so alone, but not doing so because he knew that he would fall apart if he did. He was stuck._ "I'm going with Isaac…" he said, needing to swallow, for his voice was croaky, "To take our baby girl's body, that sweet little girl, who never had sunshine on her face, or took one breath of air, who never saw her mother's beautiful blue eyes adoring her…" _and the image of Julia holding that tiny, lifeless baby flashed in his mind,_ and he gasped out a moan of a sob, and through it he went on, shaky, "I'm going to take her to your morgue, Julia." He stood up straighter, forcing himself to be stronger, "I'm going to take her to that cold place, where murder victims go, so she doesn't," _too hard to say it…_ "get tossed in with the hospital's medical garbage."

"Please, William, don't go, not like this," heartbreaking as her voice began to squeak, Julia unable to breathe, her tremors shaking her words, "I don't think I can bear this without you," sobbing, "Please hold me. I want to be in your arms, William…"

A memory flashed inside his head, of _how meltingly perfect it had felt that first time she had wanted to be held, in the dance studio, after she had been attacked by Scanlon, and how everything suddenly had felt right as she rested her face against his cheek, soft touching to his ear, and her heart beat so close to his. So much, he wanted to feel that now. But, they were so different, and he had accused her of being to blame for their little daughter's death, and she had scorned him for believing in a God who could do such a thing, and… it just felt impossible, to turn, to touch, with so much wrong between them._ He fixed his eyes on the crack running up the length of the door in front of him, the small gap that defined the difference between the door and the wall.

"I was hurt," William said.

"We were both hurt," she amended.

And he noticed that her voice had grown closer – _she was right behind him._

"But…" she would deal with the worst of it, "What I did, my abortion, it was inexcusable, in your eyes, at least. It goes against your beliefs…"

"It's possible we'll never find common ground," he interrupted.

"I know," she conceded, with her voice low, her head down, aimed at the floor. He could not see it, but all over again, her eyes filled with tears.

"But it doesn't matter…" an uplift in his tone. He exhaled, _this would be important_ , there was a strength to it, a sense of being resolved…

 _Julia felt her heart opening, wishing._

"We are not the same, Julia," thinking he'd found the answer, he rushed, "We've been different every day of our marriage. But I count every single one of those days as the happiest in my life. Even right now, my heart is ripped open, gushing with pain, and, still, I'm also, at the same time happy, so grateful, that I have you, that you love me, that we're in love with each other, still. If we never have a child, it doesn't matter. What matters is that we're together. Your love means more to me than everything."

"William…" _such a PULL between them…_

He turned to her. _(She had had him at, "Don't go…")_

And the _world tilted underneath them, and the sky swirled all around them, gravity compelling them towards each other with tremendous force…_

Sweeping her, flinging her, into his arms, into a delicious, heavenly _… "wet, soaking wet…?"_ embrace. William kissed at her ear, and she let herself be surrounded by the smell of him, kissed, tasted his skin as she buried her face in his neck, _grateful, so grateful_ , to be _home_. They held each other, and breathed each other in, and slowly, their bodies conformed, molded. And then, she pulled back, cherished his face, felt the pang of tenderness take her heart, for there was such sadness, such worry, there. She reached up and wiped a tear from his face.

He explained, "I can't imagine placing that beautiful little baby in a vile coffin…" wrinkling a corner of his mouth at her.

And somehow, her psychiatry training, her natural instincts and her ways of understanding others, her intense and intimate knowledge of _this man_ , somehow, _the way he said it_ … " _in a VILE coffin_ ," it stung at her, potently, alerting, reminding her, that she had already thought this was exaggerated, too _big_ , his reservations, his struggles, about burying their unborn child, from other things he had said about burying their little Mary. She knew that this was triggered, connected, to something big, from his past. And then, her mind imagined it, sending her the answer. _Never having actually seen it herself_ , based on what _her own mind had conjured up when William, and George too, she remembered, had told her about their finding the little coffin, the tiny toy coffin for the doll… the doll that had had the Gillies' audio recording of her pleading with him not to bury her alive, sobbing and begging for William…_ Her heart seized with the memory of the terror. She knew, now, despite never having had actually heard the recording, exactly the moment when James Gillies had made it, _the grave dug, the coffin six-feet down, WAITING FOR HER, lid opened, at the bottom of the pit. Her – forced down, pushed into the coffin, pushed, and shoved and forced down into the coffin, the lid closing, light going, air going…_ And she felt it, she understood it – _William would be troubled, with that history, he would be deeply troubled, about placing his unborn, Church-decreed soul-less baby in such a coffin, and burying her under the ground, wholly ensuring his adored child's eternal fear. It would be, for him, intolerable. The fact of it seemed to close off the only path… But…_

There was an outward gasp…

As Julia just suddenly remembered, " _There was another way! Her father had chosen it! Perhaps…"_

"William," she asked it so gently, "We could cremate her… after Father Clements baptizes her, if he will…"

So many problems, it hurt his head terribly. _Cremation is not acceptable, and no priest would baptize a child who could not go on to live their lives following in the ways of Christ, not if the priest was certain the child would not have a life ahead of them to live…_ He stepped out of her arms and rubbed his fingers to his forehead.

Julia whispered her argument, swaying him, "There would be no coffin, then. And we could bury her anywhere we wanted, then…" Her brain kept her added exception to herself, _not, she was pretty sure, in a Catholic cemetery, quite possibly not even legally, anyway, in any cemetery._ AndJulia was thinking, considering that somehow, despite all that, _they could take Mary's ashes up to William's mother's cemetery in Nova Scotia, bury her there, so she would be with her grandmother…_

William pictured it, feeling such astounding relief, the words coming, rustling and warm, out of his mouth as a breezy exhale, "The tree…" he uttered the magical place, "the tree with our heart…"

And she knew _he meant the special tree_ , _over-looking that wonderful spot in the park where he had brought her to a gourmet meal of_ _peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches_ _, on the picnic blanket, and he had suggested they experiment with absinthe, and they had had their first kiss, and then their bodies had known as much as their souls did, that, if they fell in love this time, it would be forever, for they were, they always had been, perfect for each other. And up high in that tree, he had carved his heart, inside it their initials, and later, after fate had brought them William Jr., he had etched in a stem, the outgrowth of their love, with William Jr.'s name, sprouting out of their heart._

Julia smiled. "Perfect, she'll be a part of us always," she ensured, "Down around us, soaked into us, a part of our roots. It's perfect, William."

He wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, in his head, _agreeing and disagreeing, for it was not the way he had learned, the way that fit with his beliefs, but it seemed, that for the two of them, for here and for now, and with what they had and for what they had become together, it was the way that was right._

The couple stepped apart, resolved, readying to roll up their sleeves, and William peered down at her darkened, wet, hospital gown. "I got your stitches wet," he worried.

"Yours too," she quipped, and then she giggled, spilling it out in the air around them, tiny little bubbles of hope.

)

Outside of Julia's hospital room, Dr. Tash and Constable Crabtree waited with Mary's' small body hidden inside the doctor's medical bag. The press would be lurking. Isaac held the bag cradled in both arms, unable to make himself hold the bag as one would, as one should, a medical bag full of medical supplies. " _Too long,"_ he passed the bag over to the constable, who held it in the same awkward, and yet appropriate, manner…

)

On the other side of the door, William had suddenly panicked, for he had realized, so much more settled now, that _Julia was out of her hospital bed, "only hours after she had had surg…"_

There was a soft series of knocks at the door.

William opened the door, Isaac stepping quickly into the room. Immediately, his doctor's instincts sent a chill down his spine. "Julia!" he made himself whisper the yell, "Not out of bed," he ordered, pointing to the bed.

Obliging him, Julia moved back to the bed. Tucking herself under the covers, she asked, "Isaac, perhaps you could send her a nurse. It seems both William and I have gotten our stitches wet." But then she thought of something even better, adding. "Or… Could you go with William, back to our house, take care of his stitches there for me…? William can get the penicillin mold extract…"

Isaac was agreeing before he had completely managed inside his head to chase after, " _what stitches would the detective have – Murdoch didn't have surgery…?"_ And then it hit him, leaving him with a sense of awe as he remembered, _"Of course! The Tiger!"_

"William?" Julia called him.

William hurried to her side, and she took his hand, pulling him down onto the mattress next to her, _overcoming his reluctance to sit on the bed because he was still so wet._

Isaac quickly excused himself, "Your constable and I will be in the hall."

Julia whispered to him, "Bring William Jr. back with you. I want to hold our baby," _flaring such a longing in his heart._

"I will," he replied and then he asked, before he kissed her good-bye, "There will be reporters…" and he suddenly felt embarrassed, worried that he _would not be regarded as properly manly or strong,_ "Does it appear I have been crying?"

Her face already told him the truth as she answered, "It does…" And then she said, "But, on bright side, your blackeye is barely noticeable," as she traced the bruising below his eye.

And William felt a thud of sadness land in his chest, for she revealed their darkness, now, seeing the injury as a 'blackeye,' having lost the light required to see it as she had earlier, as a 'rainbow-eye.'

"Sleep if you can," he whispered with his kiss.

And Julia stared after the closed door and noticed that she was too exhausted to cry.

 **) ( Bringing in William Jr.**

William paused Claire-Marie and his son outside of Julia's hospital room door. He looked into his son's brown eyes and, with an air of sternness, of caution, he said, "Be careful with your Mommy. She's hurt."

He waited for the response.

"O. K. Daddy," the toddler said, a surge of fear rising inside of his little body.

 _This would be hard to explain to one so young…_

William Jr., in his father's arms, reached his arms out for his Mommy from across the room.

Claire-Marie stepped into the room and struggled with whether she should stay in or wait outside. She spied a small table over by the window. She would put her mistress' bag down there. It helped to have something to do.

William helped get their son into Julia's arms, intently aware of protecting her stitches, and she held him. Such a washing over her, of relief. Tears welled. Every emotion, glistening her eyes. And William thought to himself that he had never seen her so beautiful as his heart pulled in his chest.

She explained that his baby sister wasn't there anymore, and it had made his Mommy and Daddy very sad. "Remember," she said, as she shifted the child over next to her in the small bed, and she touched a hand to her lower belly, "She was very little… like the kittens at Church…?"

"Kittens?" the child said, grasping that there had been a loss.

And William worried that the death of his little sister may be more than his young son could cope with. And then he remembered, out of the blue, from when he was just a bit older than William Jr. was right now, his own father teaching him how to fall. " _Willy…_ " Harry had waxed philosophical out in the horse paddock, and William remembered his father up above him so high, eclipsing the Sun with his silhouette, _"Before you can learn how to ride…"_ his father had taught, giving him his first riding lesson, but William realized in this moment that he had used the lesson for the rest of his life, to climb trees, or to love with all of his heart, " _first, you must learn how to fall."_ And Harry had begun that day, imparting to his son how to _accept that it would be scary, that it would hurt, and how to roll with the motion of fall, to absorb the blow._ His father had taught him as a very young lad, to do a forward somersault, to hit the hard ground with the back of his shoulders, rolling, then doing the same stunt from higher, then higher, until he as a small child stood, wobbly, atop the highest fence post in all of Nova Scotia, until he readied, and he breathed, and he somehow found his center, the deepest center, and then he launched into flight, already knowing, by then, how to fall. And he thought to himself, _oddly,_ _that life would have no value without death…_

Julia added her little son's hand under hers, tenderly pressed it down into her bandaged wound. "Your little sister, Mary, Mary Susannah, was in there – Remember, the baby grows inside Mommy's secret pouch?" she asked, "But she stopped growing, and so we had to take her out, and now, she has gone to heaven, and for us, now, she's gone," she told.

"No kitten?" he clarified.

"No baby, sweetie," she responded, "No more baby sister."

William sat on the bed next to Julia and lifted his son into his lap. He was grateful to his wife, he'd always known she would be a wonderful mother, and he added, "The baby is up in heaven with your grandmother Mary now, and Jesus, and she's safe," he reassured. He asked then, "Do you understand, Little Man?"

"No baby…" the child replied, and he shifted his big brown eyes to gaze down at Julia's lower belly and added, "inside Mommy."

"Yes," William answered, "Yes, that's right." And he remembered that Claire-Marie had suggested they bring a storybook with them to the hospital, for it was passed his bedtime. "Little Man," he directed, "Lie with Mommy…" he lifted William Jr. back into Julia's arms, and the little one nestled in close, "And we'll read, 'The Kite that Went to the Moon."

"Oh, you like that one!" Julia whispered into William Jr.'s ear as he rested his head and all those lovely black curls onto her shoulder.

William read the story while Julia stroked at his curls, and William Jr. burrowed closer into his soft, warm, Mommy, and he yielded to his own babiness, and he sucked his thumb, and he soothingly twisted his favorite curl and he loved the way it felt as it touched across his ear…

This is how the story went;

There was a young boy who made the largest kite in the town with his own hands. His friend, the woodcutter's daughter, painted a moon and several stars on the kite. Feeling very proud of the kite, they went to the field to make it fly to the moon. All the other boys and girls were watching, but unfortunately the kite would not fly. The boy was so embarrassed as the village children laughed at them. The two children took their kite on a quest to find someone who knew why the kite would not fly.

Deep into the woods, it got very dark, and the night stole away the sunshine. They got distracted because they were so hungry and had missed dinner, and they looked for some food in the bushes. They had not noticed, until it was too late, that the kite was gone. An elf appeared out of nowhere and explained to the children that the kite had failed to fly to the moon earlier because it was daytime, and the moon was not bright enough in the daytime.

Then the two children and the elf rode a comet up to the moon, where they found the kite, and there they met the shimmering, delicate, 'Lady of the Moon.' Now, the elf was frightened of The Lady of the Moon, and so he disappeared because of his fright. The stern Lady of the Moon was not happy that the children had entered her territory, and she told them to leave. Before they were swallowed up by the setting of the moon, the children rode the kite back home, showing all the other children in the village that the kite really could fly. But, as soon as they placed their feet firmly on the ground, and the Sun glowed the very edges of the sky, the kite returned to the sky where it has remained a comet for the rest of time.

William closed the small book. _He thought to himself that it was fitting that the kite had gone up into the sky_ , and he said to their sleepy little boy, "The kite is up in the heavens, with your sister who could not stay here."

"Up with the stars," Julia elaborated, so close to him he could feel the words vibrate in her chest and inside of his body. She had surprised herself, _feeling grateful in this moment for having discovered her own willingness to use the illogical, unfounded existence of such a place as Heaven to help their young, young child deal with such a confusing and confounding and wholly incomprehensible event as death._

William stood from where he sat on the edge of the bed and tucked the storybook back into Claire-Marie's small bag. The nanny would be taking William Jr. home with her, where she would be watching over him while the detective stayed in the hospital with the doctor. The nanny would be sleeping for the night in the guest bedroom just down the hall from William Jr.'s bedroom.

William leaned down and waited for Julia to kiss her 'Little One' goodnight. Then he scooped the child up into his arms and handed him over to his nanny. William tilted down and kissed William Jr.'s curls. "Goodnight, Little Man," he said. Then he walked Claire-Marie to the door and opened it for her.

The moment the nanny stepped out into the hallway with the child, just the two of them, his father standing at the door waving goodbye, and she whispered softly to him, "Say goodnight to Mommy and Daddy," William Jr. began to squirm and fuss.

 _There was going to be trouble…_

Instantly, William Jr. became extremely upset, whining and squirming with his trying to get free of his nanny's grasp. "I want Mommy," he cried, and his crying quickly escalated into a temper-tantrummy screaming and wailing, and all attempts at soothing him were failing…

His parents shared a look.

"I want Mommy," the cries had become panicky now, "I want Mommy," the child repeated over and over, his beautiful little face becoming red, for it was so hard to breathe when you were bawling…

Julia's motherly instincts told her there was no other way. "Bring him to me," she said calmly.

William took him from Claire-Marie and shushed him as he carried the crying toddler over to his mother in her hospital bed.

His Mommy hugged him close, soft, her words through his sobbing, "Shh. My Little One. It's alright…" as her pillowy body swaddled him safe.

"Want Mommy! Want Mommy!" his wails cried with less panic now.

"You've got Mommy," Julia promised, and she stroked his curls from his face, "You've got Mommy, hmm? She's right here."

"Want Mommy," like a chorus to a song, repeated, with the volume, with the tempo, lowering with each verse, "Want Mommy…"

"Mommy's right here. Shh. You got scared, hmm? But Mommy's staying right here," she vowed, the child's calming making it easier for her to think, and Julia understood, on a two-and-a-half-year-old level, that his little baby sister, inside his mother, had disappeared, and the kite went to heaven, like William's little hand shadow puppet baby deer's mother had too, up on the ceiling that night, and now her beautiful little son was scared that she would disappear too. "Your Mommy and your Daddy are staying right here with you, Little One. I promise. Shh," she soothed him once more. Then she looked up at William. _Encrypted, the message needed to be baby-encrypted, though William_ , she thought she saw it in his glance, _already had an inkling._ "He's confronting something monumental – Our mortality…"

And William fully grasped what his little son was afraid of, and he remembered _his own fear of losing Julia, and how it completely overwhelmed him sometimes… And then he remembered the Tiger,_ and guilt buckled his knees, _for they had risked it, both of them could have died, just yesterday, and left their beautiful little boy all alone in the world._ And then William took some solace as he told himself that _that his innocent, 'Little Man' didn't know that. "But,"_ came the reminder, _"he knew his little sister had been there, inside his mother, growing like a little 'kitten,' and now she was gone, and even if it was less disturbing to think she'd gone to heaven, it was still earthshattering nonetheless…"_

Julia tucked her face back into William Jr.'s curls, and she told him, "I have to stay here in this bed in the hospital. That's all… But I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

William sat on the bed next to them and rubbed at his son's back. "Mommy can't leave the hospital yet, so the doctors here can fix her hurts… So, she has to sleep here tonight," William explained.

"Me too," William Jr.'s request muffled into his mother's bosom.

She rocked him, and she kissed his curls. In her head memories flickered in, sweet, wonderful memories, from _after William Jr. had just been born, after William had done the unbelievable and performed the surgery in the snowstorm, and saved them both, and they, their tiny infant and her, and some nights William too, stayed in the hospital together so she could nurse him and bond with him and care for him while she recovered._ She considered it, for a moment, considered her 'Little One's' request to stay with her, before deciding he would be better off in his home.

Julia looked over into William's eyes. "You'll have to take him home tonight…" she said, hoping William would understand the importance of the reassurance to the toddler that one of his parents was home with him, "…with Claire-Marie, so he has his Daddy with him." She tucked her face back down close to the child. "Daddy will go home too, and Daddy can tuck you into bed, into your comfortable, cozy 'big-boy' bed," she explained what would happen, reassured him that it would be alright after all.

William added, "Claire-Marie can bring you back here to the hospital, to Mommy and me, tomorrow," hoping he was gently telling that he would not be at home in the morning when the little boy woke up. _He fully intended to hold Julia through the night._

Before the child could react, Julia urged, "You'll be Mommy's big-boy, hmm? Go home and sleep in your own 'big-boy' bed," she asked, and she told too. She caught William's eye, "You go with Daddy now," she said, shifting the balance, handing the child to her husband.

"Hey there, Little Man," William greeted his son with a smile. He too, pushed the curls from the little boy's face. "You know, Blanco's going to be so glad you came home to him tonight. I don't think little rabbits like to sleep alone. He needs his little boy with him," he stood and carried the boy towards Claire-Marie at the door. He would keep his son in his arms. Claire-Marie stepped aside.

William Jr. suddenly felt so tired, and he melted down into his Daddy's arms, and plopped his head down into his Daddy's neck.

William's gestures signaled to Claire-Marie, telling her what she could do to help, that she could gather up his coat and hat.

"Say goodnight to Mommy," William instructed casually, turning back to Julia.

"Night Mommy," the sweet voice said, from where William Jr. rested his head down on his Daddy's strong shoulder.

"Night Little One," Julia smiled, "See you tomorrow," she wisely added.

The door closed behind them, and suddenly the heaviness of the sad air weighed down on her, _alone…_ with the grief. William and their little son and the nanny had not likely even made it to the end of the hallway before she started to cry, and she rolled her eyes at herself, scoffing, " _Guess you weren't really out of tears yet, were you?"_ And she accepted it, as she turned to the night table by the bed, and she saw his handkerchief, the new clean one he had brought back with him, waiting there for her, next to his roses. It was the roses, that made her cry harder, for with them came the bittersweet memory, now so much more bitter than sweet, of _William telling 'Baby Murdoch' this morning that he was going to buy them for her, all the different colors like the rainbow on the wall_ , as William's scent, Chinese spices and perfect musk, despite him having had only worn the small square of fabric in his pocket for such a short while tonight, wafted in, and filled her senses when she held it to her face, and even now, in a way, William held her.

)

William Jr. was sound asleep in his father's arms by the time the detective and Claire-Marie made it downstairs to the hospital main entrance. Predictably, there was a small crowd of newspaper reporters waiting there, having been alerted that the detective had brought his young son and their nanny to visit his wife. Flashbulbs popped like fireworks all around, and William worried that they would wake the baby. Immediately, the questions rang out…

"Detective Murdoch, would you care to comment on reports that Dr. Elizabeth Mole will likely be saved from the noose in the killing of her husband – that it will be judged self-defense, manslaughter…?"

And, "Have you made any headway on recapturing Malcolm Lamb, detective…?"

Another quickly adding, "Perhaps you think Lamb had already paid enough for his crimes – maybe you aren't even really trying, fellow copper and all…?"

And, "How is Dr. Ogden? Is she terribly distraught over the loss of your baby…?"

William thinking to himself that _that particular reporter was an idiot…_

Someone else asking, "Do you think it was from the trauma of nearly being killed by the Tiger, sir…?"

"How's your son taking it…?" a cry from the back of the crowd managed to catch his attention.

Quickly followed by a comment that _hit him hard, though he did not quite know why…_

"Too bad you couldn't save this one, eh?"

And William found he _needed to choke back his tears._

He caught Claire-Marie's eye, gave her a nod, for he intended to push his way through them, he wanted her to be ready to follow. He leaned forward and began his determined walk directly through the center of the huddle. "It has been a terrible, terrible day for us," he said loudly. "Otherwise, I really have nothing else to say to you."

 _William Murdoch was furious_ , he realized, as he made it into the sanctity of the cab. He blew out the pressure through his pursed lips. " _Take solace in the fact the William Jr. is still sound asleep_ ," he told himself. And he let the rocking of the carriage, as it headed for home, soothe him and quiet him, and then all he felt was the sadness, the terrible, terrible sadness, sadness down to the marrow in his bones.

 **) ( Holding Each Other Through the Storm**

" _No shirt for sleep tonight, Isaac's orders,"_ William thought to himself as he undressed in Julia's hospital room readying to slide into the tiny bed with her and hold her through the night. _The Tiger slashes needed to be left opened to the air to dry, to heal._

"William," Julia's weak, sleepy voice breathed the comfort of him in as he took her in his arms and rested his head down next to hers on her pillow.

Through the window, the moonlight was bright, and he could see Julia's wavy hair spilled all over pillow behind her. " _She had brushed it,"_ he noted to himself as his soul tried to decide whether he would cry or whether he would sleep.

 **) Enter the Press**

Teddy Nelson, the famous and dogged Toronto Gazette reporter, had paid off an orderly to get into Dr. Ogden's hospital room. He closed the door behind him and quietly prepared his camera. " _This would be a magnificent photograph!"_ he said to himself, as he pictured it on the front page with his headline – " _Murdoch's Cope in the Aftermath of the Tiger."_ He aimed the camera, setting up the shot. _It was perfect, the detective lying, bare-backed, on his side, his beautiful and mournful wife asleep with him in his arms. Both of their heads sharing her small hospital pillow. It was obvious that they were in love. And, although the image spoke of the deep sorrow they were enduring, there was magical sort of strength in it too. Truly, it was perfect. He would even be able to get the long Tiger-claw scratches down the detective's back in the picture_. He battled with the risk _– the camera would flash…_

&)

Next to William, Julia twitched, wrapped up in a dream…

 _ **She was watching.**_

 _ **It was the Tiger. The gigantic Tiger, with a sweet, sweet, tiny little kitten.**_

 _ **Suddenly…!**_

 _ **There was a flash, a boom, of lightning…**_

 _ **And in its strobing, she saw that the kitten was really their baby! Their baby girl! The Tiger! "WILLIAM!" she screamed out, "THE TIGER HAS OUR BABY!"**_

Jumping him out of his sleep, Julia bolted upright next to him in the small hospital bed. _So cloudy-headed… the screeching sting of his stitches in his back,_ his brain explaining to himself in a rush – _"She's having a nightmare!"_ and William scooped her into his arms and he soothed, "Julia! Julia. It's just a dream. Shh. It's alright…" he said as he found her face and he brushed the curls away. He slowed his words, tried to slow his thundering heart and his rapid breaths, "Shh. It's alright… It's alright, Jul…"

Her voice squeaked, overwrought with it all, "It's not alright, William. It's not alright! How can it possibly be alright, when I… when we, when we lost our baby!?"

 _And he had to admit that she was right. They had lost their baby, and it was unbearable_. And he whispered the truth to her, "I know. I know." _But he also knew_ , and so he told her, too, "But, it is done, Julia, and we survived it, and we have each other, and our son, and we ARE alright. We will heal from this. We are in no danger right now. We are safe. The worst is done now. It WILL be alright. It will."

 _Dizzy with the whirling of her interminable emotions, and mingled in with them, hope, and love, love and gratitude for this man right here with her,_ and for a moment, _it felt to her like she would never be able to speak, or even to breathe, again._

"Shh," he kissed against her ear, "Shh." William tenderly brought her back down onto the mattress, brought her to her place, her head resting on his chest. _He did not notice that he did not feel the pain of his Tiger wounds pressed down into the bed. He felt nothing but love._ "Shh," he bathed her in his warm whispers again, "Shh. Shh," with a kiss.

Breathing slowed, deepened. Sleep re-came.

) (

The next day, the Inspector came to visit them in the hospital with Margaret. He caught the reporter, Teddy Nelson, in the hallway outside Dr. Ogden's room. Brackenreid banged the reporter up against the wall, and told the nosy, irritating man, "Mind your business," through his gritted teeth.

"It is my business," Teddy retorted.

Nelson had managed to get his story, with his sneaky, intimate photograph of 'Toronto's Favorite Couple" in the doctor's hospital bed together, into the paper THIS MORNING – no small feat, considering the late hour at which he had completed it. He argued, still plastered against the wall, "Besides! My story was a good one for your detective and coroner, was it not, Inspector? Think about it. I'm on Murdoch's side on this."

Margaret, at her husband's side argued, "It was a lovely story, Thomas…"

And Brackenreid released the man from his clutches.

Nelson straightened up, and then tugged his lapels back into shape. "I was planning on knocking, anyway. I think Detective Murdoch will agree to talk with me. The detective and I have a bit of history when it comes to matters such as this one," he said.

Margaret was highly intrigued, her snoopiness alerted. "What history?" she blurted out, then thought of something and asked, "Was it with their son?"

 _Now, you don't get to be a top reporter at the Toronto Gazette by giving away your secrets and betraying your sources and contacts, and so Teddy Nelson already knew he would NOT be giving the gossipy woman what she wanted. But, she had hit the nail on the head, and now he was working not to let it show on his face._ "That's between me and Detective Murdoch, Mrs. Brackenreid," he replied simply. He signaled at the closed door and asked the Inspector, "May I?" preparing to knock.

"I'll do it!" Thomas shoved the man aside. "Bloody reporters," he grumbled as he knocked on the door.

While the Brackenreid's visited with Julia, William stepped out into the hall and spoke with Mr. Nelson. It was true – they did have history, for it was Teddy Nelson who had caught him as he stepped into a cab to go home for the first time after William Jr. and Julia were both safe and secure in the hospital, after he had performed the Cesarean section surgery in their home in the huge snowstorm.

That had been two and a half years ago. Teddy Nelson had made a brilliant connection back then, asking William pointedly about what he had seen in his future when he was in Dr. Harm's Time Machine. The reporter must have gotten wind, back then, that William had said he had seen that he would have a son. William had been taken off-guard by Nelson's direct question, and he had also been burning to tell someone the amazing truth about it, so he had weakened and told Nelson that, yes, back at the turn of the century, he had not only seen that he would have a son, but that the age of the boy in the future matched perfectly with the timing of the birth of William Jr., his son being born in 1904, so that he would be 8 years old in 1912.

Nelson had sworn to keep the secret between them. The reporter had been true to his word. William decided to trust him this time as well, though this time, it was with a broken heart rather than a soaring one. Nelson's subsequent stories highlighted the strengths of William and Julia's marriage. For instance, the next headline he wrote read, "Murdoch Miscarriage Only Further Fortifies Marriage."

Fortunately, the shaky times that were ahead for the Murdoch's were not detected by Nelson, nor the other reporters. So too, they had had to work to hide their unconventional burial of their unborn baby girl from the press.

 **) ( Laying a Loved One to Rest**

As with all things in life, there were blessings and obstacles at play in William and Julia's struggles with properly burying Mary Susannah. Desperately, William had wanted to have their baby be baptized. Father Clements, however, said that he could not do such a thing, for it was against the sacraments of the Catholic Church to baptize a child that was not alive, and even more problematic in Mary Susannah's case, one who had NEVER been alive. William had called Father Keegan for help.

There was a phone call from Father Keegan to Father Clements. "What parents really are asking us when they request baptism for a stillborn is whether their child is now with God…" Father Keegan had said into the phone. Father Clements had felt such a pang with those words, for he knew William Murdoch well, and those words had gotten to the heart of the matter, and the priest wanted to do anything he could to give the man he had come to know, not only as a friend, but also as a remarkably GOOD man, the relief he sought. It was agreed between the two priests that Father Clements would hold a ceremony – not a baptism, but a special, and secret, ceremony in the Church. During the ceremony, Clements would reference Mathew 19: 14, ensuring that the loving and bereft parents could confidently entrust their child to God's mercy, knowing from the Scriptures that God wants all people to be saved, and that Jesus had said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

) (

To William and Julia, the ceremony _FELT_ like a baptism, with the each of the parents naming the child, held by William, naming her "Mary Susannah," and both William and Julia tracing the sign of the cross on the child's forehead with holy water, as would normally be done when performing a baptism.

William believed he would be able to convince Father Clements to allow Mary Susannah's burial in the Church cemetery. This was because he knew that back during the case involving the Virgin Mary statue that had cried blood-tears, the visiting Bishop at the time had both, allowed, and conducted, the funeral ceremony for the newborn who had been killed by Father McCray. This was despite the fact that that child, originally buried under the rose bushes by its distraught mother, had likely never been baptized.

However, William's aversion to placing his own sweet little girl's remains in an overly small coffin haunted him so severely that he and Julia decided against doing so. Even though William, with Julia's help, had come to understand that it was his association to Gillies' tiny white toy coffin from all those years ago that was causing his reaction. His aversion was worsened by the long history of monstrous torments James Gillies had forced upon him, only recently posing as the devil, placing a small speaker inside of a poor man who he had forced to murder two men, merely to taunt William, and further, then threatening to kill William Jr. with an injection of heroine, and to blow Julia up by hooking her up to a bomb. Thus, it seemed that he could not overcome his revulsion to the thought of putting her small remains in the small box and burying her under the ground – so much like what the heinous man had done to Julia when he buried her alive. And, truth be told, this was stirring up Julia's angst with the horrible memories as well.

Thus, it was a big relief that they had found another way. Julia's father had chosen to be cremated. And both the Inspector and George were Freemasons, and therefore were members at the Masonic Temple, where cremations were commonly performed. Their biggest obstacle to having Mary Susannah cremated had been earning the approval of the stuffy and stodgy Grand Master, who remembered the Catholic Detective Murdoch all too well, and the "cheeky" female doctor who was now this Murdoch's wife, and the mother of the child to be cremated – and once again, they were asking for him to allow a woman into the temple. Put to the leaders, one of whom was George, it was decided that the procedure would be permitted.

William and Julia brought their unborn baby's ashes to their "Heart Tree" the next night, in the park, under the stars. Their daughter's ashes, her remains, placed lovingly in the ground at the foot of that special tree, flowed back into the cycle of life. Their Mary Susannah was in the tree's deep roots, and its strong bark, and its rustling leaves in the breeze. She was with them forever, now… Mary Susannah Murdoch.

 **) ( HOME**

It was only ten days after the miscarriage that William brought Julia home. He put William Jr. down on the floor in the foyer, and both he and Julia encouraged him to go play with Claire-Marie, watching after him as he put his little hand in his nanny's and they headed down the stairs to the playroom. William accompanied her up to their bedroom where she changed into her nightgown, despite the fact that it was only early afternoon.

"I've brought you a glass of water," William said placing it down on her night-table. He pulled down the covers on the bed for her and added, "I can fix you a cup of tea if you like…"

"No, thank you," she answered him weakly.

William felt such a strain in his chest, for _he had not expected her to be this down._

Julia crawled into their bed, the coziness of their own sheets and pillows and blankets lulling her down deeper.

"A glass of sherry?" he suggested, lifting the covers up over her, with a part of him thinking it was not a good idea to encourage her to imbibe in alcohol, but yielding to the hope that it would bring her some comfort.

Julia sighed, "No. I just want to sleep."

"Of course," he answered her, unable to hide his own solemnness.

 **) ( Distractions Sought – To the Morgue**

It was only a week later that Julia returned to work in the morgue. She was feeling depressed, and she thought that the distraction from her loss, from _their_ loss, of their baby, that the return to something challenging, would help.

William had gone along with the plan, even though a part of him was reluctant. He, too, was optimistic about the prospect of her being back at work alleviating her low mood. He bought her flowers, left them on her desk in the morgue to be found when she walked in. He had considered all the rainbow colors again, but the twinge of pain he felt in his heart, with picturing the colorful roses in his hands when George told him that Julia was in the hospital, pushed him away from the idea. He had gone with white… white roses.

 **) ( Signs of Having Trouble Coping**

A few days later, they were needed, George showing up at their home early in the morning. The dead body was found on a busy sidewalk. It had probably been dumped there, from moving a carriage or an automobile. No one had seen it. William proceeded to investigate as usual, checking the street near the body for hoofprints or tire tracks, finding identification in the man's pocket, sending constables to question neighbors…

Julia was trying, but suddenly, pressures upon her, William looking for her to provide him with useful clues, she felt overwhelmed by it all. Helplessness swooped in, as if all of her edges were filled with encroaching dark clouds, and in resistance to it, she reacted with anger, an emotion that could fill her with a sense of power, albeit only temporarily. She suddenly stood from the body and fumed, her tone openly displaying that she was furious with her husband, "How can you just act like everything's fine?" she charged him.

William quickly stood up as well. He was caught off-guard, and even though his instincts told him to look away to avoid the sting in her eyes, he was stunned and stared blankly at her, wide-eyed, deer-in-the-trainlights.

"The stoic Detective William Murdoch just goes on about his day – Work… Solve the case… When our little baby is lying cold in the ground. Our baby girl, William!" she squeaked with her upset, going from sarcastic fury to collapsing distress. She gave him a shove in the shoulder and darted away, suddenly overcome with embarrassment, feeling other eyes on her, ashamed for making such a scene, and of being such a hysterical mess.

George looked at him, crushed by the look on his face, such pain… almost lost, almost _wishing_ he were lost.

William exhaled, wrinkled a corner of his mouth at George. With a quick glance around, he saw that Higgins and young Brackenreid were watching the turmoil unfold as well. His eyes finally found the ground, _feeling the need to hide, feeling the heat of tears at the back of his throat_. He walked over to her.

Julia was trying everything she could think of to _pull herself together. She was so distraught, so mad. She wanted to lash out more… and to bawl herself into a crumbling puddle. She felt out of control, and terrified, and…_

He was behind to her, his shadow told, perhaps something more, a warm tingling at her aura.

William couldn't find, _not anywhere, it was not possible_ , to find something soothing to say to her. Finally, his voice scratchy and low from over her shoulder, _his voice, only HIS voice in the world striking the exact right chord inside of her,_ adding to the blanketing, harboring, protecting, caring, presence of him she had already been aware of, he said, "I assure you Julia, I'm hurting too."

 _She knew he was hurting. She knew he was…_

She turned to him and dove into his arms, into a big hug. And she succumbed to her sobs, in his arms, the convulsions of her body throbbing into his, as it absorbed… as he absorbed… accepted, withstood, the agony spreading into him, the shockwaves landing with such devastating blows, resounding, and sinking, and settling into his center, heavy and hot.

Eventually, tears in his eyes as well, he whispered to her, "We'll heal from this Julia. And that beautiful little girl, whom we'll not be able to see grow… she's not suffering." He swallowed, pushing down the words his instincts sent him, about _their Mary being with his sister and his mother, and her mother, and her father, in heaven, for he knew these thoughts would not bring her comfort_. And William suddenly felt an even deeper, more profound pain, at knowing the burden of _HER_ loss, in having to endure it without having Faith. "Shh," he whispered and rocked her softly, "Shh."

Her crying quieted after a time. He suggested they go home, together. "Perhaps it was too soon…" he admitted. He called George over, began the instructions for the constable to call the Inspector, and to work the case without him.

Julia, her face still hidden from sight, in the shelter of her husband's neck, said, "George… I know you'll have patience with me…" She lifted away from William, instantly feeling both the loss, and the relief, of his closeness as the cool air rushed in surrounding her hot, damp face. "I'd like to try," she said, the tone of it wobbly, her effort to sound strong showing up only in volume.

"Very well," William answered her simply.

And Julia and William and the constables all went back to it, her eyes never finding the courage to meet up with anyone else's – even William's.

Her husband modeled it for the others, compassionate focus on the work at hand.

William would not leave Julia's side that day, stayed with her in the morgue as she performed the postmortem. It reminded her of _the day she had felt herself fall in love with him, completely, the day she went from maybe to gone, never to return to a world where she did not love, with all her heart and all her soul, William Henry Murdoch. It had been the day after the night he had slept on her couch, when he had rushed in wearing only a sheet – her 'Greek God,' to comfort her after her numerous nightmares about being attacked by Edward Scanlon, the likely Chapel Hill serial killer, Jack Ripper. It did her good to remember that she had overcome so much in the past, and that she still had him at her side._

) (

Once a month had passed from the day she had lost the baby, William found himself preoccupied with thoughts of returning to their lovemaking. He laid a few hints, nuzzled into her neck from behind her in the mornings, stood closer to her, taking one of her curls in his fingers. Each effort only served to further convince him that she was not ready. Thus, he tried to pour all of his energy into roughhousing with William Jr., and into his work, and, too, into courting her without being pushy. He convinced her to let him take her to the opera. She had even managed to joke with him about his nearly falling asleep. He felt hope, but so too, underneath it, worry.

 **) ( A Breakdown**

 _The case had been an easy one_ , William noted to himself as he worked on the final report of the murder that involved the body they had found on the sidewalk. _And Julia seemed to have regained her strength_ , he reassured himself. Unfortunately, another body had been discovered and awaited Julia's postmortem over at the morgue. " _Well, perhaps the work, the distraction, will do her good,"_ he thought to himself. Finished solving this murder though, he collected Crabtree and they went together to summarize the case with the Inspector.

Brackenreid poured himself a scotch, concluding, "I suppose I'll have to put a call in, over to that blooming reporter at the Gazette – a part of the deal I guess…"

George inserted, "Scratching each other's backs, eh sir." Then he added as an afterthought, looking to Detective Murdoch, "And how is your back doing, sir," he asked, "I noticed you've been sitting in your chair again."

Uncomfortable drawing attention to his wounds, William quickly responded, after a somewhat irritated sigh, "I'm fine George." Wanting to focus back on the work at hand, he asked the Inspector, "So, we can clear Dr. Ogden to release the body to his family then?"

There was a disturbance in the bullpen, drawing all eyes to Higgins' desk. The morgue attendant had come over to the stationhouse, _a rare occurrence in itself_ , and he seemed quite upset.

 _William felt a panic sweep into his chest!_ "Julia…!?" he gasped out loud.

Higgins turned his eyes to meet Murdoch's through the glass of Brackenreid's office, the morgue attendant following suit.

 _How was it possible to become even more filled with dread…?_

They rushed out into the bullpen, Julia's attendant already spurting out his alert, "Detective Murdoch, sir! I think you should come. It's Dr. Ogden… Um, she's… She's somewhat hysterical, in the cold-room. She won't come out…"

Immediately, all five of the men rushed over to the morgue. Murdoch, the fastest, he shoved through the big morgue door first and ran into the cheery, white-walled space this amazing woman had made in such a dreary place. Julia's phonograph had reached the end of its disc-recording, the repetitive ' _tick – tick – tick_ ,' of the needle bumping against its edge the first sound that registered in William's ears… _and with it he knew that Julia had been trying, so hard that it made him ache, to overcome her sorrow with the music_. The cold-room door was opened, an uncommon sight. He _made himself slow down_. He heard the others stumble to a piled-up halt behind him. William _made himself breathe._

Awkwardly, he felt his hands reach to rub nervously at his hat, finding nothing there, for he had not brought it with him. He stepped into the cold-room doorway, and he let his heart be drowned by the sight of her. _So still. So despondent. She was not hysterical, at least not now._ And William reminded himself how much _it had hurt to recognize that the beautiful light that he had always seen in her eyes had seemed to have gone out ever since the miscarriage_.

Julia sat in the freezing cold room, on the edge of the gurney with one of the bodies. Her eyes stared down at a huge block of ice. William felt a chill, unsure whether it was from the cold or from the disturbing sight of seeing Julia so broken before him. His brain tossed up a word – _"sublimation,"_ because of the wispy clouds rising off of the ice, and he remembered being on the hospital roof after their awful fight. _Still there, his regret._

William stepped in, to care for her, his voice so low, he tried to join her, "Julia."

She did not lift her eyes.

William felt a wave, a rush of sadness and fear, surge through him. Momentarily, he had to lock his knees, stand with all his might, against the helplessness. "Julia," he repeated her name, and he stepped closer.

George and the Inspector moved to the door, Higgins and the attendant standing up on their toes to see in from behind them.

Her voice was quiet and monotone, as if in a trance, as she spoke, "Mary's so cold, William. And I needed to… I could warm her up, if I was as cold too, and my body would…"

 _There was a logic to it,_ his brain tried to explain in the background. She was _imagining that Mary was still in her womb. That their baby was safe, and alive, but so too, she knew the tiny baby was, in reality, cold – too cold. And maternally, she had to warm her…_

"It _IS_ very cold in here, Julia," he said as he took off his suit jacket. He took that one final step up next to her and draped his jacket over her shoulders. Finding a small section of the gurney to rest down on, he sat, perched next to her.

Her eyes still down on the ice, she mumbled her protest, "No, I need to be cold too – to warm her." Motionless, however, Julia was unable to remove it, and the jacket stayed in place wrapped around her against her will.

William sighed. _She needed help – his help._ He stood and leaned down to lift her into his arms, and he carried her out, all the other men stepping aside, none able to catch either the detective's nor the doctor's eyes as he went by. Respectfully, they stayed back, as William took her over to her desk. He turned around and sat them both down on the edge of the desk. Every instinct he had was to cover her. He pulled her into a hug, tender, he held her close until he felt her, heard her, breathe. One of his kisses at her ear, he whispered to her, "Julia, you have to let her go. She's not too cold. Remember, we cremated her, we cremated our little girl…"

The wham of desperation and longing slammed and walloped and seeped into him as she finally looked into his eyes. "Mary… our little Mary, William…" her face wrinkled up to cry, and, in that squeaking of her beaten-down voice, he heard the extent of the truth of her loss.

"She died. She's not too cold. Let her go. Julia, please. You have to let her go," he found himself pleading with her, for he could not bear it.

"I can't, William. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Julia's forlorn admission squeaked out, "I couldn't hold on to her. I let go… of our beautiful little girl. I let go… I just… I feel so awful, that I couldn't hold on to her. I couldn't keep her safe. I'm so sorry, William."

His fingers traced over her face, wishing to relax, to relieve, the wrenched muscles there. He tilted his face to touch his lips, his nose, his cheek, to hers. "I'm sorry, too. Shh. It's alright. Shh," he whispered, "It's done now. Shh…"

Dr. Ogden regained her strength, her composure. Still, her husband insisted she let him take her home.

 **) ( A Glimpse of Light – the Power of Laughter**

At home, glad to be home, but still so embarrassed, Julia had changed into her biking trousers. She had imagined playing in the woods with William and their little son, for it was rare that they were both home from work early enough for the Sun to still be shining in the sky to light such adventures. But… but, the energy to do such cheery things seemed to be missing by the time she arrived down in the playroom to suggest the idea. Instead, she had simply sat with them for a while, and 'helped' build a small fort, but became sour and listless, and so had excused herself. Now, she settled for a glass of sherry on the front porch.

 _Spring had come. There were buds on many of the trees, and daffodils yellowed the front gate_. She spotted a purple crocus poking up from the soil, and she felt a strange sense of betrayal… for _it seemed unfair that the world had gone on without her… without her baby girl, in it._ And, seeing the sprouting crocus in the ground, she pictured, remembered, _spilling Mary Susannah's ashes in the ground, underneath their Heart Tree, and then covering them with the dark brown earth_. And she thought to herself, _that the world had not gone on without her, rather, it had gone on WITH her, with her atoms, wholly in it. That little Mary's atoms were soaked up into that tree. Her little body, the buds at the ends of the branches…_

The front door made a sound, turning her head.

Holding William Jr.'s hand, William had found her. "There's Mommy," he whispered, loud enough for her to hear too.

In the boy's other hand, there was a familiar little children's book. She recognized it. _George had bought it for him. The day after… after she had lost the baby. He had said it was part of his godfatherly duties_. She thought to herself now that they " _would have made George Mary Susannah's godfather too." Now, even more so, since he had helped them to get her… had helped them to be able to bury her ashes under their Heart Tree._

"Go on," William encouraged his son, gesturing him closer to his mother. "Show Mommy the word. Tell her your joke," William caught Julia's eyes and lifted his eyebrows big. He was outright gleeful, and Julia felt the tiniest spark of anticipatory happiness in her heart.

" _Underlined,_ " Julia saw the animal's name on the page. William had used four different-sized lines under the long word, to help William Jr. finally say the word right. It was amazing, she realized – _He was already teaching him to read!_

Julia pointed at the word in the book. So many things were happening inside her head as she glanced at their beautiful, wonderful, magnificent boy standing there in front of her, and seeing him, feeling him, so close, sparked a warm wave of love in her heart. She asked him, "This word?" And at the same time, she recognized the word, for _they had worked on it with him. And William Jr. had told them that he had seen this animal at the zoo. And it had had a baby_ , _the news reported in the newspaper,_ she remembered, sadness landing with the remembering, that _they had said once, at the breakfast table, that it was having a baby too, that it had a baby inside of it, "just like Mommy did…," but that animal mother had her baby at her side now, and she did not._ She pushed the thoughts aside, seeking recovery rather than wallowing. With an audible sigh, she took a deep breath, as one last association, a thought that was more grounded in science, and policework, and therefore more steadying, passed through her mind, _"Interesting that, this animal, too, had been so integral to this epic case. It had even brought them to the Tiger…"_

"Yes, Mommy," William Jr. answered her, and then looked to his Daddy…

And Julia's attention was drawn back to the written word in the little book.

William urged, opening his own mouth, starting the word silently, exaggerating the mouthing of it, eyes on his son…

Shyness scrambled William Jr.'s brain, however, and he stood motionless… wordless…

"You can do it, Little Man," William said, "Remember, we practiced it. You know how it starts. You already know the first part of the word, then your memory will tell you the rest…" He nodded his head, then glanced and nudged his chin towards the book on his Mommy's lap. "Sit on the bench with Mommy, so the word isn't upside-down," he coached, and put your finger under each part as you say it."

"Come," Julia encouraged her little boy up onto the bench with her, and she placed the book half on him and half on her. "Read me that big, big word," she said, leaning down close to him, so close she smelled his hair. Then she whispered to him, glowing his little-boy heart, "It will make me smile, Little One, I'm sure it will."

The small boy took a deep breath, and saw the first, biggest part of the word, and remembered he knew it, and so he just said it, "Hippo…" and the next three parts just came tumbling out of his mouth, "pot-o-mus."

And the whole wide world lit up, because it was true, and his Mommy smiled, and she squeezed him, and she declared, "Well done, Little One!"

And then his Daddy stepped closer, tilted in and said, "Do you remember the joke?"

 _And he did! At least, he thought he did_ , but it seemed gone now.

"About Mommy's being a doctor…" William hinted. His son still too blank, he added, "She took an _OATH_ ," he added, then said, "Look at the word in the book – It starts the same way."

 _Julia figured it out then, but playing her role, she held her face in check._

William Jr.'s eyes turned back to the book, and it helped him to concentrate, not seeing them waiting for him. He put his finger under the first part of the word – the part he already knew – _"hippo…"_ The memory hit him so fast, he jumped as he said it, and the volume was too loud, "Hippo-crit Oath! Mommy took the hippo-crit oath, when she became a doctor!"

By his parent's proud reactions, he could never tell that his joke was not perfect. They oohed and ahhed all over him. William sat down with them on the bench, and his mother whispered something in his Daddy's ear, and his Daddy chuckled. And William Jr. realized then, that his Mommy and Daddy felt happy together, and he realized too, that they had not felt happy that way for a long, long time.

Standing back up, then taking off his suit jacket and vest, his father readied. Placing the outer clothing items down on the bench, he offered, "Mrs. Murdoch, your son and I are going to play a new game – 'Animals.' Would you like to join us?"

"Animals?" Julia asked, helping William Jr. off of the bench. She took the children's book from him.

"We will be the different animals, and see if we can find their food," William answered, "To determine whether they're herbivores, or carnivores…"

"Hippo-pot-o-mus is a herb-or!" William Jr. shouted, hopping up and down with glee.

His Daddy's smile was so big _– his teeth so white_. "Very good," he cheered, but he couldn't help himself, he corrected, "A herb-IVE-ore."

"I think I'll watch you," Julia said.

And William's happiness deflated, _for he had tasted it, but it was only fleeting_. _And he tried so hard not to let it show._ "Come Little Man," he said, lifting his son up into his arms. "Let's start with the horse, heh…"

Julia heard him say, as he reached the grass, and then maneuvered the little boy around to be up on his back, and he galloped and loped around their front yard, asking back, "Is a horse an herbivore or a carnivore? Does it eat plants or animals for its food…?

It seemed William Jr. was having too much fun to think, let alone answer.

William stopped, and sat, carefully dismounting his rider. And then the full-grown, usually stiff and reserved, man, still in his suit trousers, and his dress shirt, and a tie, got down on his hands and knees and put his mouth down to their greenish, mostly still brown, front lawn, and promptly ripped up some blades of grass in his teeth. Continuing his pretending to be a horse, he told, _fighting the urge to spit out the grass_ , "Yummy, some grass. I think I'll eat some," and without looking directly into his son's face he asked him, "Is grass a plant or an animal?"

And the boy yelled out, "Plant!"

"So, the question is, is a horse is a horse a carnivore or an…?" William waited for it to click, gladly letting most of the grass fall out as he asked it.

"Herb-vore!" William Jr. said proudly, for he knew he'd gotten it right.

"Now let's do some _ZOO_ animals," William suggested. _He planned on telling a joke, and he hoped Julia was still watching, for she would understand it, even though there was a good chance that young William Jr. would not, for most likely two-and-a-half years old was simply too young to understand the humor in a pun._

"I think YOU…" he pointed at his son, encouraging him to play along, "are a BIG carnivore from the zoo," he started. And then he unexpectedly laid down on his back, and then he took hold of the small boy and lifted him high up above him with his strong arms extended out straight as he lay in the grass, and he said, loudly, for Julia's benefit, "You're a lion," and he then he brought his son down on top of his chest, and he teased, "That is if you ' _ **LIE-ON'**_ your Daddy," and he squeezed and growled and he rocked, feigning being attacked by the bog-boy carnivore on top of him. And the boy giggled with delight. And William pushed at his wife, calling out to her, "Look Julia, William Jr. is a LIE – ON!"

And Julia laughed, and then she thought of a marvelous pun of her own, and her playfulness bloomed. Spurred to do it, she rushed out to them, her husband and son rolling about on the grass, and she squatted down next to them, and they both looked up at her, surprised and happy that she was there with them. Reaching in to take a hold of her husband's tie, she told, "And, Little One, if you pull on Daddy's tie, and you growl, you can be a…" and Julia pulled, and she growled through her gritted teeth, "Grr. Grr…" _Hopeful_ , she looked to their faces… _her pun failing, she saw nothing_. "Really?" she asked, then one more time, she tugged roughly at William's tie, zigzagging it back and forth while growling. "I'm a TIE – Grr, am I not? A Tie-gur?" she settled for telling her own punchline, a sure sign of a joke that was a flop, "Get it?" she still wanted some glory.

William Jr. didn't care if he got it or not, he wanted to be a tie-gur too! So he took a turn pulling at his Daddy's tie and growling.

Julia chimed in, through her big smile, "Well, you be the Tie-Gur on Daddy, Little One, and I'll be the Lie-On!" and she pounced, and William groaned, feigning pain, and they rolled all together in a tangled bunch, and they wriggled, and they growled, and they laughed, and then they lay still, on top of William's Jr.'s Daddy, who was exhausted and out of breath, and the laughter died down, and they lay still, together, for a moment, looking up into the clear blue sky with the sun getting low, and they were so, so happy.

William remembered the _Animal_ game, and said, through his still hurried breaths, "And son, are lions and tigers herbivores or carnivores?"

Julia helped, "Do they eat plants or animals, sweetie?"

"Animals, so carn-vores?" William Jr. asked it at the end.

"Carnivores! Yes, they're carnivores," William smiled gleefully. Then he sat up, dropping his family members to tumble all about. "Now!" he signaled he would move on, "How about an anteater?" he asked, and William Henry Murdoch, once again, got down on all fours, and he put one arm to stick out, long and thin, to appear to be extended from his face, looking like an…

"William!" Julia giggled at him, "You look more like an elephant."

"No. No," he insisted, "This is my anteater long snout, not a trunk. And I use to eat…?"

Julia stood her son up on his feet, sensing he would want to roughhouse more with his Daddy soon enough. "What do ANTeaters eat?" Julia asked him, close to his ear, like it was a secret hint between them.

"Ants!" he called it out.

William continued to crawl around, trying to be an anteater – _quite poorly_ , Julia thought. His ridiculous anteater snout arm poking down hunting through the grass for ants, William asked, "And bugs aren't plants, so I'm not an herbivore. It must be a…"

The parents both looked expectedly at their son. _Oh! He got it_!

And the little boy's face brightened, and William Jr. shouted, "Bug-ore!"

And William laughed and looked at Julia and said, "Well, the Inspector might say so…"

And she laughed harder, _and his heart ignited_. And she just had to try to top his joke, so she said, _stretching the double-meaning of the two words and knowing she was doing it, and so wishing to hear William's pained groan in response,_ "Well, what does Inspector Brackenreid know. He's just an…" _and oh how that pause teased her husband, and William readied for her incoming, unavoidable now, most surely to be bad, bad pun._ "Inspect-i-vore!" she spurted the word out and then fell into laughter at her own joke…

And so delightful William complained, "Ohhh, that is awful," and he shook his head at her, and then he joined with a chuckle.

And off on the side of it all, William Jr. watched them, and he felt happy, and then he felt left out, and so he attacked his Daddy, for no good reason he could think of, except that he wanted to play too.

And his smart, smart Daddy saw him coming, and he caught him, and he suddenly wasn't an anteater anymore, because they were so, so tall.

William spun the toddler around, and tossed him about, thoroughly enjoying, _both William AND Julia, thoroughly enjoying,_ their little boy's squeals and shrieks and giggles. "On with the game," the Daddy commanded. "Now you are a hawk. A bird of prey. You eat little animals you see scurrying about down below on the ground, using your keen eyesight…"

"Carnivore!" somehow the little one got the word out through all those squeals and giggles.

"Excellent!" his Daddy declared. And then William marched them over to one of the trees in the front yard.

He lifted his son high up into the tree, thinking it was _unfortunate that it was too early in the springtime for there to be leaves growing on it._ He started giving his clues, "This animal eats leaves. And the longer its neck, the more leaves it can reach…"

"Giraffe!" William Jr. screamed it out.

"That's a hard one to say!" Julia exclaimed proudly.

"Herb-vore Daddy," he said. Having a wonderful time, he wanted more. "What animal next?" he screeched his question impatiently.

" _A monkey_ ," William thought, " _Perfect so close to the tree."_ With a quick glance to Julia first, part of his brain alerting that she would not like it, he guided his young son to a branch and he said, "Next is a monkey. They climb up into the trees to find fruits…"

And William Henry Lionel Murdoch Jr., being the son of these two particular parents, boldly swung and pulled and lifted and climbed himself high, high, high up into that tree, at record speed.

"William!" Julia cried, "He's too high!" Her eyes bore into her husband's, causing his pupils to dilate with fear and worry. "You must go get him!" she insisted, bolting her husband, _his amazing lumberjack skills always, always impressing her,_ into full speed up the tree.

Within mere seconds, William Jr.'s father was right there, right there behind him, closer than his shadow.

"You climbed very high, Little Man," he said to his son.

"Like a monkey," the boy declared – _a simple statement of fact, as the boy saw it._

"Yes," his Daddy said, "Like a very good monkey, indeed." Knowing full well that down was harder than up, William reached over from his branch and took his son in his arms and pulled him close to his chest. "Hang on to me now, hmm… We'll go down. Then try another animal." He began his way down, holding tight to the boy. A glance to Julia down below – _she was still worried_ , so he reassured her, "He's fine… our little monkey."

She sighed, then answered him, "Yes."

Closer, almost down now, she heard him ask, "So, monkeys eat fruit, so are they herbivores or carnivores?"

 _Too easy that one_ , William Jr. answered, "Herb-vores Daddy."

"Good," his Daddy replied.

Once on the ground, he handed her son over to her to hug and treasure and coddle, just a bit, after her scare. The family returned to sit together on the grass.

Soon, Eloise came to the front door and called out to them that dinner was ready.

Julia Ogden caught her husband's eye, a devilish, Mona-Lisa smile, on her face, and he chuckled seeing it. He warned his little son, knowing full well that, whatever her pun would be, this little boy would not be able to grasp it, but using the boy to sound his complaint ahead of time, "Your Mommy is about to tell another bad joke, Little Man."

And Julia stalled, for this pun needed a bit of organizing first. Then she said, "So, William Jr., if Eloise asks you what kind of toast you want with your supper, Daddy and I both know you don't like rye. And so, if she asks you if you want rye, you would say…"

William Jr.'s big, brown, Williamy eyes looked pleadingly into his mother's face and then his father's…

 _He was not going to say it…_

Julia folded briefly into a giggle, admitting wholly that the joke was not good. Through the laughing, she said, "Rye-No, you would say rhino…"

And William moaned so deliciously…

And she giggled, "It's funny!"

And then, mischievously, cockily, William pushed her down into the grass and then and he lay himself on top of her, and whispered in her ear, through his big smile, shaping his words, "Oh, you have GOT to stop!" And, " _My God!"_ the breath rushed out of him, for _she was so beautiful_. And William wanted, so very much, to fully 'lion her,' and to have her 'tie grr underneath him,' and to growl and purr in his ear. And for a moment, he felt her melting into him. And he almost kissed her, but her eyes changed, and she wrinkled a corner of her mouth at him – _sorry…_ And he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, accepting it.

"Shall we go to dinner?" he offered, lifting his weight off of her, holding a hand down to help her up.

" _Healing took time," he told himself, "And I am a patient man_." And _he felt it in his own heart, there had been a bit of healing_. A glance to the sky, as they walked into the house, _William Jr. in his arms, his soulmate at his side_ , William looked up to the heavens and he thanked God.

 **) ( Stumbling in the Dark**

Julia had recovered surprisingly well after her upset yesterday, and, even though it was a Saturday, with a new body in morgue, they were going into work. Claire-Marie had come in after breakfast and would be taking William Jr. over to play with his little friend, Alice. William and Julia had already seen them off, and now they were dressing for the day upstairs in their bedroom.

From across the room, William noticed Julia watching him in the mirror. He had been distracted by the task of choosing a tie. He had finally decided on a black one with polka-dots, lifting it up over his head and around his neck, and then beginning to tuck one end under the other.

He watched her in the reflection as she stood from her vanity and approached. There was a sexy air to her way of moving, her expression, and he was feeling himself tugged by it.

She stopped intimately close to him, her eyes dropped down onto his hands, following the motion of his tie. As she took control of tying it from him, she teased, "A nice choice, William. Though I do prefer the one you wore with your birthday suit all those years ago," and she giggled, thinking back to _the somewhat astounding time that William Murdoch had been bold enough to wait for her in their hotel suite with nothing on his gorgeously naked body except his plain, black tie. How marvelous it had been to surprise him by showing up with one of her friends, rather than alone, as he had expected. Absolutely delicious, his scrambling to rush to close their bedroom door upon hearing another voice with her as she unlocked their hotel-suite door._

William was certain she was signaling that she was ready to resume their lovemaking – " _It was now passed the six weeks healing time that Isaac had suggested,"_ the optimistic reminder came to him.

Finished tying the knot, Julia stroked her hands down his chest through his shirt, igniting his groin with a rush. He took her chin with his fingers, an undeniably romantic look in eyes. William raced ahead inside his head, thinking to himself that _they were not set on a specific schedule at work today – they could…"_

"I'm sorry…" she glanced away and then back at him, "Um, about the cold-room, yesterday. It slowed you down, I know… on your cases." _An unexpected and disturbingly niggling feeling of shame over the incident gurgled in her gut…_

"Perhaps we will be slowed down today as well," William rumbled, and then tilted his head, leaned closer, and closed his eyes as he tried to kiss her.

Surprising them both, Julia pulled away. It would be hard to say which one of them looked more stunned as they looked into each other's eyes, both of them wanting to understand what had just happened.

Julia swallowed and darted her eyes away with a jolt, for _she was clearly at fault. She had most assuredly just given him mixed signals, and she herself was puzzled by her reaction. At first, all she could think of to do was to apologize._ "Oh my," she gasped at herself, quickly adding, "I'm sorry William," backing away even more.

For his part, William had done what he usually did in this type of situation – he had thrown up his defensive walls, and as a result, he looked back at her now, wholly blank. Underneath those shields, though, he was aware of being embarrassed, and just in that second, he noticed the heat of his blush cover his face, for he, gentlemanly and thoughtful and respectful William Murdoch, _suddenly saw himself as being flesh-hungry, vulgar, and lewd, as a revoltingly typical and disgusting MAN in her eyes._

Julia, of course, regretted making him feel that way, and proceeded to profusely apologize even more. "I'm so sorry. I… I don't know why I… I'm very sorry, William…"

He tried to speak, the only thing coming to mind being to appease her concerns, "It's alright, Jul…"

 _But they both knew it wasn't alright…_

And she knew she needed to offer an explanation, so only the truth of it rolled out between them, "I just… I just don't _FEEL_ that way, anymore."

And the fact of it seemed so impossible it couldn't quite get in. " _She doesn't "feel" that way anymore!?"_ William's head hurt with the thought. " _What!? She doesn't love me anymore? She doesn't feel attracted to me anymore…?!"_ he tried to grasp it _._ But it completely took the air out of him, punched him in the gut.

William coped, minimized her statement by saying, "You need more time," as if it were simply a fact.

"Yes," she answered, "I suppose," her added admission of her uncertainty being the only way to be honest with him. In the back of her mind though, a troubling suggestion arose – _"Maybe you're afraid to get pregnant again…?"_

She walked away from him, back over to her vanity. "That must be it," she said, trying to talk herself into believing it.

She sat and caught her own eyes in the mirror, looking for the doctor, the scientist, in her – the capable and confident one who could handle anything. Rational, and logical, she told herself that she was being unreasonable – _Isaac had said, and she knew it was true, she was truly sterile now. There was too much scar tissue in her uterus now. She needed to believe it. William was right, she needed to move on._ A deep breath, she returned to locating her earrings.

)

Later that night, William made an effort to re-connect with her, bravely bringing up the awkward and troubling attempted kiss, and its subsequent rejection. As they dressed for bed, he told her, "Julia, I want you to know, there is no pressure…err, on you, from me."

 _She did so love this man_ , she thought to herself as she looked into his worried eyes.

She walked close to him and reassured, "I know that, William. I know you wouldn't…" For a brief moment, she thought about _really addressing the issue, in herself, between the two of them, and she realized that THAT was what she was not actually ready for yet_. _Facing the truth of it meant that there was a dead certainty that they would have no more children. And that made the death of Mary Susannah even more heartbreaking – that beautiful little baby had been their last, their only, chance to have any more. Even their adoption attempts had failed._ She sighed, for she was beyond disappointed, and she knew _what she had just given him would not offer any solutions._ And then, erupting a sickening twitch in her gut, she felt the conflict of _her own confounding confusion, for a part of her wished and dreaded that that FACT, the fact of her not having any more children, a part of her thought that it might not be true, and that impossible hope – it terrified her._

But right now, right now… _so much, she wanted him to just hold her and to tell her it would be alright,_ and so she disclosed her feelings, unable to confront their causes. "I feel so broken, so lost, so vulnerable… William. Like I'll never regain my footing again," she glanced away. It was so slight, so subtle, her lean towards him.

It was enough though, for him to sense what she needed from him. "Hold on to me," he said, and he opened his arms to her, offering everything he had, and he wrinkled a corner of his mouth at her, and repeated, softer this time, "Then hold on to me, for now," hoping it was enough.

Unable to do it without crying, her face wrinkled into tears and she let herself fall into him.

"You know I'm going to love you forever," he whispered into her sweet-smelling hair.

She nodded into his shoulder. _She did. She did. On some level, very far inside, she did._

 **) ( Little Things as Reminders of Before**

Mr. Ducharme phoned Stationhouse #4 and left a message for Detective Murdoch. Julia's crystal rainbow necklace had finally arrived. Nearly two months since her miscarriage, William wondered if he dared give it to her, for it seemed a lifetime ago that she had awoken to marvel at the beauty of the little rainbow on their bedroom wall.

 **) ( One There,** _ **Knot**_ **the Other**

In the shower, regretfully alone – without her, memories, luscious, luscious flashes of lusty delight, flared William's groin to alert. A big exhale, he worked to push the engorging feelings away. Stuck in the pleasant memories, however, his eyes remained affixed to the cascading floods and droplets of steamy-warm water pouring down over the white-tiled shower wall. Wham, the tremendous feelings slammed into him, remembering _her gorgeous, soaking-wet, jiggly, "so soft," body right there in front of him. The taste of her, wet, in his mouth, all over his tongue. Her moan in his ear, those long, long supple legs of hers wrapping around him, luring him…_ _Squeezing and squishing her sweet juicy succulence all over him…_

Tearing himself away, he turned around, rinsed the soap away from his back. " _Stitches don't hurt anymore,"_ he noted to himself, trying to think of something else, anything else. And then, intrusively, the agonizing image of his seeing _tiny, tiny, still, little Mary Susannah in that hospital prep room_ appeared _._

 _Enough!_ William opened the standing bath door and moved away. The remnants of his sexual thoughts lingered, down lower, and he hurried to cover himself with a towel. He caught himself in the foggy bathroom mirror, _saw his own frown_. He had to swallow, bury down an unexpected wave of feeling sorry for himself. _Intolerable – self-pity._

) (

William awoke first, his own dreamed, abandoned, powerful, thrusting had breached the realms between wake and sleep. " _Again,_ " he noted, with a hint of shame and disappointment to himself, about another one of his lustful dreams. It was undeniable though, his longing, his pining to be with his wife in that one, specific way. _It was morning, early morning… daybreak._ He turned, _Julia still asleep beside him_. His eyes traveled to the wall behind her, where he had used two of his adhesive strips to stick her crystal rainbow necklace to the wall. He had _nearly placed it exactly right,_ he noted, _the Sun's rays through the window blinds, now, shining its small rainbow only half an inch above the necklace_. _It had been there for two days. She had not seen it_. His sigh sounded, solemn, somber, in the room.

 _Julia was_ _under a dark cloud, and there is a need for light, in order for one to see a rainbow…_

 **) ( Eruption**

The third day the necklace waited on the wall, William woke up, again, in the midst of dreaming about making love to her. His body was in that luscious state of hard, and strong, and overflowing with enormous wanting. Julia was asleep next to him, lying facing away from him, her back to him. Her fiery curls wisped all over her pillow, and his eyes were drawn down to the creamy flesh of her neck, exposed, open. He almost chuckled out loud to himself, thinking back to Julia having had described the attraction of Dracula, of the vampire's bite, to him as they stood together, too close really, for she was engaged to another, in her morgue years ago. He heard her breathy voice all over again in his mind, saw the image of her, so stunning, " _That's the way the mating dance works, isn't it?"_ she had said to him, " _The female sends out her signals and the male reacts. She'll toss back her hair, expose her neck, her most vulnerable aspect…"_

William tried to push the thoughts away, _she had given him no signals that she was ready…_

Demanding, insistent, his mind lured at him, suggesting he reconsider, sending him a memory from that same time, tempting him with Julia's own words, with her seductively sideways glances. There was a deliciousness to the memory that summoned his most primitive urges, " _A vampire represents something savage and forbidden. He demands her complete surrender. Some women long for uninhibited romance… I've heard it said."_ And with it, he had lost the battle, he rolled to her. The scent of her sinking deeper into his nostrils crazed him with spinning, dizzy, scrumptious desire. His fingers stoked her hair aside. His lips hovered, a deep, deep inhale, at her edges, the slightest pause before they touched…

She awoke.

Her deeply visceral instincts, her ingrained habits, prompted Julia to reach for him, to lean backwards into him. "William," her raspy voice sleepily called.

 _Mm,_ his mouth on her, warm and wet, sucking and tugging. His hands taking, soaking every molecule of her in, pulling her to him, riding the curve of her hip, up and in with a swoop at her waist, rippled upward over each of her ribs, up to her bosoms, and his breath flared out of his nostrils, flowing, hot, down her neck, as he cupped the heavy supple moldable flesh in his fingers… _Oh my God, how much he wanted to hear her make those defenseless, desperate, hungry little noises, so unprotected, so weak, so out-of-control that they escaped her throat without her permission, Julia underneath him, moaning with aching, aching need for him…_

And then all of a sudden, _bolting her out of her falling state_ , she remembered with a fright, " _They had NOT. They were NOT, not since…"_

And she stiffened in his arms.

And sensing the change, instantly William stopped, pulled his head back, lifted his arm away from her. His body, slightly, moved away.

 _Guilt,_ just under it, _sadness_ , landed inside Julia. " _It was unfair to him." She knew that_. She steadied herself, insisted with an inner strength that there must be a way forward from this… An answer registered – _She was willing to give him relief…_ _They had done it before, pleasured each other…_

She rolled over to face him, then pushed at him, her hand at his big shoulder, pushed again, adding a deep kiss to his mouth, forcing him to surrender...

William rolled for her, yielded control, rolled onto his back.

And she slipped her hand down over the cottony fabric of his pajama top, down lower, lower, to find the bulge there, waiting. Her fingers fumbled, searched for the dangling string. She tugged it loose…

A gasp from him…

Then she kissed downward, down the center of him, poking her satiny tongue in to taste, to moisten, his skin, intermittently, between each of the pajama-top buttons. When she pushed at his pajama bottoms, _though_ , her face, her hot breath, almost there…

Abruptly, he stopped her, his hands to both of her shoulders, firmly, pushing her up off of him, ceasing her downward progression. "No…" he grunted it out, a whisper at all his might, _disappointed, fighting the seeping he felt inside of a sense of betrayal._ "No, not like this," he stated. And then he felt the rush of shame, and he rolled away from her, sat up on the edge of the bed. A deluge of anger swept through him, locking his jaw, gritting his teeth. "I don't want you to _SERVICE_ me, Julia. And then a little regret, sounding with a hurried voice in is head, telling, " _She was only trying…"_ And then such a deep sadness burned in, stole his breath away, and he wished so much that all of this wasn't so… _It was too much to lose… Too much…_ "Julia," his voice so much softer, he told, "I want you to love me, to want me, to want me to love you, to completely wrap ourselves up in each other, like it used to be. I miss…" he dropped his hands, defeated, and suddenly he feared he might tear up. He swallowed, took a breath.

She sat up behind him, and she knew he couldn't see, but her heart too, it was breaking.

"I miss… US, Julia. I miss the way it used to be…" and then he added details that stung with their pointed potency, their memories, "I miss those little noises you make under me, and your breath catching, and the way you move, and the taste of you…" And William stopped there, for it hurt too much, and he got up, and he walked away.

He barely heard her as he went into the bathroom…

"I miss us too," she whispered.

) (

 _George had noticed, they were both sure of it._ Constable George Crabtree had been there when Julia had come into William's office with her report, and she and William had greeted each other, colder than usual – _awkward – OFF_. George saw it, darted his eyes over to check William's face. It shouldn't have surprised them, this loyal sidekick of William's, now a good friend to both of them, _he had detected their discord and dissention even that very first time – after she had first told William about her abortion._ Another, someone who did not know them each so well, would likely not have seen it. But what had happened in bed this morning was still raw between them. And it was terribly, terribly uncomfortable. And it remained unresolved, and was therefore completely, completely troubling, and thus, they could each not get it off of their minds. And George Crabtree, he had noticed, his own pained heart the likely cause of his hurried, yet stumbling, and rambling, and uniquely clumsy, exit.

Alone now, William's frown, after his quick glance, hurt her. Pushing passed it, she tried to sound as 'normal' as possible, telling him, reminding him, "I have a class tonight, at the University."

His eyes stayed down on her closed initial report in front of him on his desk. A few moments later, Julia sighed, still waiting for a response, and becoming annoyed with his usual slowness, and somewhere off inside of her head, a kinder part of herself, a part in touch with how much she loved him, so much it could both soar her and cripple her at the same time, whispered – _"Still waters, you know they run deep…"_

 _There was a ripple, on his surface…_

Pressure, blown out through William's pursed lips, he still dared not look her in the eye. "I will likely be working late tonight, as well… on this. Um…" his hand up, his fingers to massage the ache at his brow, "You shouldn't wait up…" _Amazing, this pressure_ , he exhaled again, "Perhaps it's best if I sleep on the cou…"

 _Oh, she was furious – "No surprise, William Murdoch was running away again!"_

"Fine!" Julia steamed, and disappeared with a huff.

And he turned to catch the last glimpse of her, her arms pumping away at her sides, and he thought to himself in her wake, that _she always seemed to bail when things got toughest_. And then his brain completely sunk him as he saw the memory of it appear before him from the far-off past, yet again, _of the little red caboose chugging away to Buffalo, winding the corner, disappearing out of sight, only its puffs of black smoke in the sky for a moment, above the trees, dissipating, leaving him there, too late, abandoned, brokenhearted, and alone._

 **) ( What NOW? It all comes to a Head**

So incredibly conflicted, Julia prepared for the two opposing scenarios – _completely apart_ , she brought the bedding for him down to the couch, _or completely together_ – she bathed and dressed seductively, nothing at all underneath her silky-thin robe. William Jr. was asleep. She was all alone, waiting. William would be late, probably very late, and she was fully aware that the reason for his lateness was avoidance rather than work, and truthfully, it had thrown her that he had reacted so severely. And so now, she waited, everything in the world precariously poised, up on a high-wire. It was terrifying to think that it could go either way.

Terrifying and also unbelievable, for she knew their love was rare, and remarkable, and precious. She considered again, how they had gotten here. Tigers and miscarriages, awful failures with trying to adopt – _were all of those things her fault?_

 _THE KEY TURNED IN THE DOOR!_

 _He felt her there_ , not looking to her, as he stepped into the house. Peripheral vision as it was, however, William saw much. _Julia had waited up. And it was interesting to him, how much he was relieved that she had done so, for he truly had thought that he had hoped she would not._ And there was such a wallop hitting him that it momentarily soupified his brain, because William had noticedthe _WAY_ she was dressed… _the way she was dressed – or the way she was NOT dressed, nothing on but that sheer, suggestive robe. Didn't that indicate…? Well, that too, thrilled him, and frightened him as well, because it was absolutely confounding…_

William's homburg to its peg, he slipped off his coat and hung it in its place as well. _To move, it would be necessary to go through her,_ so he stayed where he was, and he kept his eyes down, down on the comfy fabric of his coat.

 _Long, strainingly long, this pause._

Julia would go first. She stepped closer, alert to his reaction. _He did not flinch. He did not pull back. He stayed. He was waiting for her, she saw that now. Just enough, the hope._

Unbelievably difficult to find words, Julia inhaled…

And setting off that perfect secret violin-note in her heart, William's beautiful brown eyes… touched hers with a glance.

For just a miniscule beat of time, his eyes stopped her heart.

Regret, palpable, palpable regret, Julia shook her head, and words came, _easier than she had thought, for she would give, she would give to him_.

"I wasn't…" she started, swallowed, and started again, "I wasn't trying to _service_ you, William," _amazing how that word still stung her so much_ , she stepped closer to him. "I thought, I um, I thought we could make love… the way we did in the past, not perfect, I know that, but the way we did back when I was too pregnant with William Jr. for us to… um…" she said, but she _had become surprisingly prudish about describing what it was exactly that she meant…_

And William caught her eye again, and, ever so subtly, he nodded, and she knew that he understood, and she went on, "So I wouldn't get pregnant again, now…"

Interrupting, unexpectedly William spoke, _so confused_ , he asked, "Now!? But Isaac said you couldn't get pregnant again…?"

"My head knows that, William, but my heart doesn't. And my heart is so broken…" Julia answered him, her face wrinkling up as she fought her tears, "It's so shattered, into a million little jagged pieces."

 _He was a rational man. Logic and reason, that was how he saw the world, how he lived his life. And he knew Julia to be a rational woman – for the most part, anyway._ _ **And this just didn't make any sense**_ _… the clues, the pieces, they just wouldn't line up! And at the same time, the cost of it, the burden of it, made his knees shake. And most of all, he knew she needed him, she needed him more right now than possibly she had ever needed him before…_

William turned, in doing so, moving closer to her. His big eyes, caught in a peek through his lashes, first the quickest dart up to meet hers, then back down again. _But he knew she had seen, in that quick glance, that she had his heart._

How the words spilled out of her, _knowing that_. Julia said, the whole while those magnetic blue eyes of hers pulling at him, "You are right William, we are both very different people, but we change each other. I think, we make each other better. You always wanted children, a family, a big family. I did not – I never was particularly interested, never really regretted my sterility…" She leaned closer, her voice becoming deeper, intimate, soft, "Until I fell in love with you. And then, more than I could ever have imagined, I wanted to have YOUR babies William – to have a family with you. I was completely changed. And now I find I'm inconsolable for having lost our baby. And I know you want a big family, and I know it's unreasonable, but I'm so scared… And, and my loss of libido, well…" she paused, considering it, "It's not actually lost, I feel, um… urges," she rushed on, "but they are so overwhelmed by dread and fear, because even though it makes no sense, and believe me, I know that, because the science says it's impossible, but I think I will get pregnant again, and then I would most certainly lose that little baby too. And I just can't…"

" _Contraception again… Perhaps she was asking for them to use contraception again_?" William thought to himself, _not much fond of the idea – especially when it was not actually needed_ , he battled, off on some sidetrack in his fast brain, _but he would do anything for her, he always would have…_ And then a warning voice piped in, _that inner-voice of his that always insisted on his being true –_ " _Not Constance Gardiner, though. Not give up your faith…"_ And suddenly he saw himself as so imperfect, so small and feeble and incapable of coping…

Julia continued, seeming so much calmer now, "And I know you want us to try again, to adopt a baby." Nearer still, with another step. "And I don't think I can take it – the vicious attacks on my character from the press, all over again… Truthfully, I feel so worthless…"

" _Adoption – she too, has considered it again!"_ William's brain screamed the good news at himself, missing the last part of what Julia had just said, about her not being able to take it, and feeling worthless. William's face beamed as he lifted his head and looked into her eyes…

 _Was it a step, or just a lean, he felt so close…?_

William swallowed, and worked to slow his speech, "I was thinking," he said, sounding calm, rational, yet rejuvenated too. He took another breath, then went on, "I could ask Father Keegan – to help us… I thought of it after talking to him, after he helped us with…" And William _stopped himself from bringing up burying Mary,_ and steered back to the _topic he had intended – that of adopting another baby,_ "I could ask him to look for an orphanage for us, up in Nova Scotia, so no one need know…"

To Julia, it suddenly seemed possible, but instead of joy and hope, all she felt was fear. Her eyes tugged at his as they darkened, and her mouth dropped opened, agape, speechlessness looming as _her heart sunk inside her chest, and she saw it in William's face, pulling him down with her. She needed to explain. He wouldn't understand…_ And as she readied to explain, she felt _the depth, the magnitude, of the hurting inside of her, and she felt as if she had found the deepest treasure, the kernel of the truth. Odd – the awe and mystery in that… Essential – to share it with him._

Her step to him this time, it crossed the boundary somehow, between separate and together. _THIS was heart-to-heart, eclipsed, gravitational, dangerous and powerful._

She inhaled, tighter, the linking of their eyes. "I think I'll never be able to love a baby properly again, William," she said, the squeak in her voice betraying her dread, "Not after losing Mary. And I worry for William Jr…, for he has no other mother except for ME, and now I am so wounded. It makes me feel utterly incapable. And…" she was pleading desperately with him now, "And, even if we are ever fortunate enough to find a baby to adopt…" she shook her head, tears welling so thick and luminous in her eyes, "I… I don't think I could ever love another baby. I don't think I…"

Finally touching her, he put his hands to her shoulders, and with his breath breezing over her, _warm, and safe,_ William, _being guided by a subconscious wisdom, once imparted to him in a dream long ago, the perfect words floated up into his mind_ , and William said, "We never love the same way twice, Julia. But you will love again. Love is like gravity – you have to _let yourself_ fall."

And then it just happened, she fell – she fell head-over-heels in love with him all over again. _She trusted._ She trusted the world with her heart again. She trusted him again, she trusted herself – _that was astounding_ … and she trusted that they would find a way in the world, as long as they were together. And all of a sudden, she just needed, so desperately, to be WITH him, to be with William Henry Murdoch, mind, body and soul…

Like two perfectly matched puzzle pieces, _almost, not yet, but so close_ , almost, like two magnets perfectly aligned and feeling the immense pull almost clicking them into place, longing, yearning, pining, to touch, wishing in the whirlwind of that forceful pull, to be one, she whispered, weak, collapsing, "William…"

And in a heated fury, they crashed together and he kissed her, his warm, soft lips to hers, her mouth just the tiniest bit opened, the silkiness of her tongue promised. " _Not yet,_ " a secret whisper, lengthening the wait.

Julia's head tilted away, her lips kissed along his jaw. "Sorry," she whispered in his ear. "I love you so much it hurts, sometimes," she whispered next. "Sorry, I'm so sorry, Wil…"

He shushed her, "Shh. I'm sorry too."

The silky sash around her waist, tugged… slipped away.

Thundering, her whimpered gasp of wanting…

And William melted, and spun, spurred into a fury by her delicate whimper, one of those delicious little noises she makes, urging him on.

His hand, in, under the satiny fabric, sliding up, big, across the smoothness of her bare back, pressed in, held her tight in place, claiming, demanding and yet so tender that it rendered her putty in his hands.

She reached, rushed, fumbled at his top trouser button.

" _CONTRACEPTION!"_ the word blared into his mind, " _She had wanted to avoid…"_

William's hands cloaked hers, stopping her.

"Julia…"

 _He was so deliciously out of breath…_

"Julia…"

Her mouth ravaged his neck, his manly jaw, took his lips. Deep, wild, savage, her kiss.

He broke free. "Julia, I think we should talk about where this is heading…"

Her voice was raspy as she answered him, "I'm quite happy with where we're heading, William. Truly, I _REALLY, REALLY_ want to," she tried to assure him she was no longer worried, and she returned again to the task of undoing his trousers.

The battle inside him, to be _good_ , struggled heartily against taking what he wanted, and certainly what it appeared she wanted too, so very, very badly. He grunted, withstanding the stress of it, "No. No, that wasn't what I meant." And he tried to find actual words – _he knew there were words…_ Finally, breathless upon the discovery, he pulled back and said, "I was talking about precautions."

"Precautions…?" puzzled, Julia suddenly was a bit lost.

"Yes. I mean, didn't you want us to… to be certain…" he asked, _such a good and responsible man_ , "Uh, in order not to…?"

"Oh, you mean..." the understanding came, arriving from out there, somewhere, in the scrumptious, lusty fog.

"Yes. Prophylactics. Or perhaps you have something else, perhaps something more modern…?" he confirmed his meaning.

"Oh, I don't think we'll be needing any, William," she fell back into him, tugged him hard into her. _Wonderful her kiss_ , her explanation lingered after it, floated, then slipped away, "I feel safe now."

The only battle left was between fast and slow, affecting which of William's remaining clothing hit the floor, how fast or how slowly the various items met that fate. William and Julia raced for that perfect spot, as if reaching it, touching it, was the only thing that mattered in all of the entire world.

Tears had already filled Julia's eyes even before he had fully taken her. Wrapped around him, thoroughly and completely entangled, he finally, finally began, lusciously to be greeted with a magnificent moan that stole every drop of blood from his brain, and they lunged and strove with all their might, with every speck of themselves, to implode, to detonate, the erupt blissful euphoria together, straining, aching to reach that moment right before, to feel that delicious float, weightless in each other's arms as the world shifted, tilted, turned, the colossal wave overcoming them, inevitable and huge, and… so… unfathomably… _GOOD_ , lifting them, dropping them, catapulting them, rocketing them, spilling into them to roll and rumble through each and every one of their cells, filling them up so completely with sweetness that they were certain never to survive it.

Heartbeats pounding… _That was so good_ … Lungs straining… _Please, please never stop…_

The world slowed, as William stretched for that last delicious ripple. She noticed it, just before she fell into inconsolable sobs, _he was crying too…_

And it was so, because touching your very being, your purest essence, to something so honest and sincere as was their love, it touched to their core, and what was found there, their truth, sometimes, sometimes, it included sorrow. But, because of that touch, it was sorrow endured together, and together, these two were remarkably strong. That night, that moment, healing, deep and cathartic, had happened.

)

William knew that healing occurred over time – that there were spurts and stops, that at times it was one step forward and another step back. He had drifted off to sleep that night reminding himself to be patient, to be patient with her, to be patient with himself. It would come.

 **) ( On the Other Side of the Aftermath of the Tiger**

Obscured, the dawning light this morning lacked its usual glow. They both knew it from within their slumber, had heard it in their sleep – _there had been a storm_. The lightning, and with it, it's shadow, the thunder, now flashed and rolled on the other side of doppler effect, stretching and stretching further away, harder and harder to hear, longer and longer between each strike, each rumble growing lower and lower in pitch. Sleeping together in their bed, both William and Julia subconsciously sensed that they had weathered the worst of the storm.

In the midst of a dream, Julia _**saw the pretty star-like raindrops filling the sky, falling from the sky, from the ceiling, landing, plopping into puddles on the floor, splattering, sprinkling, crystal-clear and pure. And she felt a freshness, a newness, a rebirth with her next breath, spring air, spring rain.**_ And, in that pleasantness, breathing in that promise, she awoke.

 _Listening…_ William's breathing, like the moon's rhythmical waves rolling up on the shore, told her he was still sound asleep. She lied there, content, content in knowing that they were once again fully united, and she marveled, wondered, at the human psyche – her psyche, somehow just a ' _click_ ,' an unexpected, unanticipated, out of your control, _switch_ , and healing had come, grief had begun to be lifted. Left inside, where the trauma had damaged the heart, the hurt would always be there. It would ache, sear, if she moved the right way, for it was forever a part of her. But, she was out from under it now.

 _A sparkle, for a second, off to the side_ , she thought, _it had a feeling of a memory, a memory from before._ It breezed in her mind _– "On the wall…"_

Turning to see, _knowing it wouldn't be there, on some level already accepting the disappointment – for her logic told her that it was raining outside, and that meant that there was no light shining through the window blind,_ _and such beauty that she sought was not possible without that light_ …

Such joy at the sight on the wall that her breath was gasped into flight.

" _Odd, and beautiful, and magical… and William, William…! William Murdoch had made a rainbow, an impossible, impossible, rainbow, on the wall."_

" _William._ William… _"_ her words fluttered into him.

Julia woke him.

Those flooring, world-spinning eyes of his, met hers.

"You made me a rainbow," she whispered to him. And she waited for understanding to come to his face.

"Oh," he said, his voice scratchy from such deep sleep. "It's a crystal necklace. Do you like it?"

"Yes," she answered simply, settling her head down in its spot on his chest.

William's mind traveled, becoming aware of _the rain drumming down on the roof, and its pattering at the window pane_. He remembered _standing in his stocking feet up on the hospital roof in the pouring downfall_ , and he remembered _the morning after the Tiger – that she had seen the tiny rainbow shining on the wall and she had become wholeheartedly enamored with it._ And then he remembered that _those two days were the SAME day_ , and he heard himself sigh. _But he had her, completely, Julia was with him again,_ and that filled him with such a profound gratitude that his heart sung, and his eyes grew hot with the threat of tears. And _he thanked God, and then he realized he had his Faith with him as well, wholly._ He had come through to the other side intact, through the ordeal with the Tiger, and with losing their unborn baby daughter, and with putting that sweet, innocent child to rest as she needed to be in order to be safe, and also with the raging through an epic fight with Julia, one that had shaken each of them to their cores, thoroughly drowning them both, and that through trusting in gravity to bring them to the surface, where they could breathe again, knowing deep down that if they could just ride it out, survive long enough to find each other on the other side, they would be alright – and they had, and that brought him enormous joy. And then he thought of Noah and his Ark, and he remembered again, being up on the roof, for he had thought of Noah's Ark then too.

" _Tick,_ " an internal little click of a sound that was only made with connection. With it, William thought of the covenant told of with the Bible story. " _Oh,_ " something deep inside of him sounded, " _That's amazing_ ," it came in a whisper. William considered telling her, telling Julia about Genesis, Chapter 9 in the Bible, and God's rainbow covenant with Noah, with Noah and his sons, and all his descendants and with all of the creatures of the world, springing forth from those that survived God's own deluging storm of 40 days and 40 nights on the Ark. He remembered she had said to him once, when they sat together in Church, that she was not a heathen, that she had read the Bible, and so she would surely know of the myriad stories of God inflicting trauma upon his flock. But he wondered if she remembered the covenant God had made with Noah – he wondered, " _Did Julia know about the rainbow?"_

"Julia," he broke their contented silence, "Did you know that God made a covenant with Noah and all the living creatures on the Earth after he had flooded the world…"

She lifted her head and she searched his face in the dim light. She resisted the urge to become sour with his bringing up the Bible when she had been feeling so good. "A covenant?" she asked.

" _Beautiful,"_ he heard himself note as he found her eyes. "Yes," he responded, "God made a covenant with Noah and the descendants of all other creatures that had been on the Ark. In it HE vowed to never again create a flood to destroy the earth…"

"God felt regret?" she asked, then fretted to herself, " _so much for hiding your skepticism."_

William sighed. And then he frowned. "I cannot claim to know the emotions of God, Julia," he tried not to complain, "Only what is written. And what is written is very pertinent to…" William paused. "Julia," his voice had regained its enthusiasm, "God made a devastating, earthshattering storm that destroyed the Earth, all the creatures gone, except for those on Noah's Ark. And then he made a covenant with the survivors that told that he would never do it again…" William shifted to line their faces up with each other, each lying on their sides. She saw a gleam in his eye. "God said that He had set HIS rainbow in the cloud, and it would forever forward be the sign of that covenant," William told the amazing part. His fingers grasped a wisp of her hair. "See? God and science, and something awe-inspiring about the human spirit, all just there – in that simple symbol of survival – in the rainbow. It reminds us that even behind the thickest, blackest, clouds, there is Sun. Even in the darkest night, the Sun shines on the other side of the world. It will come. It is there. Always. The Earth will turn to face it again, the clouds will cry out all of their tears and fade away."

"William," Julia wavered, not wanting to pop his bubble, but she, too, had an inner-voice that guided her to be true. "We can't see the world as fairytales and rainbows."

He sighed, but his spirits remained undampened. "No. No, of course not. But we can see it as _INCLUDING_ fairytales and rainbows, can we not? There is day and there is night, and there is rain and there is sunshine. You… we… have been caught in the dark, under a dark cloud, for good reason, but there is also, at the same time, undeniably, light. It is there, even if we cannot see it."

"True," she gave, for she saw the wisdom of embracing, opening yourself, to the undeniable reality that what often appears as black and white was really only shades of gray, and she smiled and hugged him tight, for she also knew that, with William Murdoch at her side, truthfully, the world consisted of a whole rainbow of colors.

William rolled them to bring her to lie her head down, once more, upon his chest, and they laid together listening to the remnants of the rainstorm. Soon William Jr.'s little knocks would come at their door. Life, in the aftermath of the Tiger, went on.

) (

 _ **Yes, it's true, that now the Sun would be shining on them once again, and they were fortunate because the press, the pressure, was off of them, for now, for their illegal use of prophylactics in the past. And thus, they need not worry about the world discovering, for now, that Julia had had an abortion, nor that William himself, despite being a devout Catholic, had requested her to have two more. He could only be grateful that she had resisted doing so, and that the carrying of those two children in her scarred-up womb had not cost them her life. They had survived the loss of their unborn child. Perhaps they would be able to adopt a child with Father Keegan's help – perhaps they would not. So much was uncertain. But there was one thing William had always known, since the moment he had jumped into her big, bright, fiery, balloon all those years ago, and they had trusted the wind, trusted their love. He knew that thunderstorms would come, and William Henry Murdoch also now knew, without a doubt, that when they did, he would choose the LADY, and he would fight any Tiger, even be it the one inside of himself, to be with her, for she was the ONE for him… I mean, even Constable Henry Higgins knew that.**_

)) ((

Nearly half a year later, over to the east of Toronto, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a young copper was killed. He was a brave man, he had been a good man, running to help someone he had never met who was in trouble. He left behind two young daughters, the youngest born at about the same time that William and Julia had placed the ashes of their beloved Mary Susannah underneath their 'Heart Tree.' News of the tragedy had never made it to Toronto. William and Julia had never heard.

Only a short time after shouldering the loss of their father, these two little girls would also lose their mother, as she succumbed to a deadly illness in the night. More than anything imaginable, it had broken their mother's heart to have to leave her two tiny daughters all alone in the world. Too much to ask, their mother had had no choice, as she lay dying in their impoverished home, but to entrust her eldest little child, only a toddler herself at the time, with watching over her tiny infant sister. She took solace in the fact that her two little girls would always have each other.

Fate, or God, or possibly just dumb Luck, or the maybe even the Stars, would end up bringing these lifepaths together. It would be in their connecting that these two little girls, and William and Julia, and William Jr. too, and even, someday, a dog named Moose, would all make up that 'big' family William had always dreamed of. In their touching each other, each and every one of them would be forever deeply changed. Their lives would grow to be strong, and meaningful, and vibrant, because, even though all of them had lost so much, and they would never be the same because of their traumas, traumas that had made serious scars, scars they would each need to heal around, in the aftermath of such traumas, since there is survival, and being alive means growing, there would also be NEW GROWTH. That's how life is. Even under the harshest of storms, somewhere in the world, there is a rainbow. And rainbows need both water and light to exist, just as does life. And it is from our encounters with dilemmas, dilemmas like in this story, between one's Lady, or one's Tiger, that we have learned that, whether from God or from science, or possibly even from both somehow, knowing about rainbows in the world can help you get to the other side of the aftermath of any Tiger-trauma.

And down here on the Earth, under God's Heavens, and below those fateful stars, it would be Father Keegan who would be the bridge that would be a major part of the nitty-gritty details that would bring the lives of ALL these Murdoch's together. William had learned much of his values from Father Keegan when he was young. He had learned that one could not trust in their heart alone, and that truth was the rock upon which we all must stand. William had used these words as guidelines to recall whenever he had a difficult decision to make.

Father Keegan had disappointed William in not living up to these ideals, himself, in the end. When that day had arrived, William had been forced to come to see his hero to be what he truly was, just a man, fallible as the next. But the mentor had also imparted pertinent words of wisdom in his admission, in that falling from the pedestal William had placed him upon, as well. Father Keegan had said that it all came down to keeping your conscience, in the end.

Encounters with life-altering dilemmas, like those of 'the Lady, or the Tiger,' center around making difficult decisions. And, if we learn from Father Keegan and from William, we see that all important decisions are about conscience. And so, what we see when we look at our heroes, and their struggles and their decisions between the Lady or the Tiger, is a window into their conscience. When we are lucky, if the timing and the lighting is just right, we see into their souls. This is what I hope I have helped you to do in this story. I hope you enjoyed it, and I thank you for coming along for the ride. It has been a truly epic one… has it not?

 _Romantic Nerd_

Storyteller Notes:

*Perhaps Julia would have lost her unborn baby even if she had not been traumatized by her encounter with the Tiger. But, so too, miscarriage suffered in such an aftermath is not all that uncommon. In a study conducted on the effects of the September 11th terrorist attacks on miscarriages of male fetuses in the USA, it was shown that there was a 10% increase in miscarriages in the few weeks following the attack.

**Related to this, there is another remarkable tree in the world, one that teaches about important values as do Newton's Apple Tree, and George Washington's Cherry Tree, and the Buddha's inspirationally simple bodhi tree. This special tree is a pear tree, now known as the '911 Survivor Tree.' It celebrates resilience, much as does William and Julia's 'Heart Tree,' and William's knurly tree in the pasture that had grown around a fence that had blocked its way. The Survivor Tree was one of many that was at the World Trade Center during the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. It was discovered in the rubble nearly a month after the traumatic day and was nursed back to health. Leafless, dead branches, the buried tree was covered in chunks of concrete, dust, and ash, and filled with traces of decimated human life. Now, it flowers every spring on the rebuilt site, albeit with noticeably less blooms on the side of it that faced the destruction – the side with the worst scars. A children's poem, written from the tree's perspective, tells of its aftermath – of its NEW GROWTH:

" _You can see in my trunk where I go light from dark,_

 _where my limbs were reborn, where I grew brand-new bark._

 _My blossoms remind us how strong we all are._

 _I'm a living reminder how we rose from the dark._

 _With the power of hope, there's just one way to sum it:_

 _There's nothing so bad, that we can't overcome it."_

 _ *******_ Thanks to RuthieGreene for sharing thoughtful discussions about Catholicism in the early 1900s, and baptism, and cremation, all in the light of considering two extraordinary parents like our heroes in this story, William Murdoch and Julia Ogden.


End file.
